Virginia Community Health Worker Association

Bridges Out of Poverty takes the concepts of hidden rules of economic class and uses them to educate social workers, employers, and community organizations about the unique and sometimes hidden obstacles that individuals from poverty face.

Strategies help improve services for clients, raise retention rates for new hires from poverty, and increase understanding of the differences in economic cultures and how those differences affect opportunities for success.

Some of the objectives are:

• Examine the resources by which you create stability
• Discover the causes of poverty
• Create and analyze mental models of economic environments
• Discover the hidden rules of economic classes
• Analyze language and story structures
• Discuss stability within family and support systems and the importance of building social capital
• Learn new tools and strategies for improving relationships and outcomes