Occupation
Community outreach worker
Community outreach workers go to where people are — encampments, transit stations, community centres, neighbourhoods — instead of waiting for them to come to an office. The job is building trust with people who often distrust services, then connecting them to housing, health, or income support. Weather, safety, and slow progress are all part of the work.
Also known as: Outreach worker · Community development worker · Street outreach worker · Community liaison worker
Occupation content
Part of Community, social and public services
What the work involves
- Walk or drive assigned areas to make contact with people who are not using services
- Distribute supplies, information, and harm-reduction or safety materials
- Build rapport over repeated contacts and identify what each person needs
- Connect people to housing, health, addictions, or income services and follow up
- Log contacts, referrals, and safety incidents for the programme record
- Work with police, paramedics, businesses, and community groups in the area
How people commonly enter
- A college certificate or diploma in social service work, community services, or addictions
- Hiring on relevant lived experience and community knowledge, with structured on-the-job training
- Transferring from shelter, drop-in, peer support, or harm-reduction work
Typical training: Certificate or college diploma
Licensing: Not typically licensed
Typical work context
Public facing · Outdoors · Varied work · Client sites · Team based
Related interests
Social (helping) · Enterprising (leading)
Related aptitude preparation
These are preparation links only. They do not measure eligibility for this occupation and no score here qualifies or disqualifies anyone.
Skills to practise
Practice suites
Related learning
Family-level learning links for Community, social and public services.
Official sources
Labour-market facts such as pay and employment projections are not reproduced here. Open an official source below for figures, with its own geography and reference period.
- O*NET OnLine — occupation search: community health worker · United States
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- UK National Careers Service — Community development worker job profile · United Kingdom
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- Canada Job Bank — Career planning and occupation exploration (ESDC) · Canada
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Labour-market context (not part of exploration match)
This is broad family-level context for Community, social and public services in Canada, not a figure for Community outreach worker. It does not affect matching scores and is not an eligibility determination.
This is a broad Community, social and public services family. Explore the official profile for the chosen occupation; entry education and training can differ within the family.
Canada Job Bank Career Planning · Canada · Current official profile; consult source for its release period
Community, social and public services: education pathways
Some roles in Community, social and public services may be regulated. Confirm whether the specific role requires registration, certification, or a jurisdiction-specific licence.
Canada Job Bank Career Planning · Canada · Current official profile; consult source for its release period
Community, social and public services: licensing
Find jobs
These are live, user-controlled searches on each source's own site for “ Community outreach worker”. Novus Learn does not fetch, store, or rank these results, and job availability never changes your exploration match score.
- Search Canada Job Bank · Canada
- Search USAJOBS · United States federal
- Search EURES · European Union / EEA
- Search Indeed · International (choose location on Indeed)