The New Jersey Department of Health has announced that Public Consulting Group (PCG) has been chosen to develop a supplemental contract tracing workforce that will support local health departments across the state.
In this role, PCG will recruit, employ and manage contact tracers who can be deployed to carry out this work in areas with increasing COVID-19 cases.
“A robust contact tracing program to quickly identify those who may have been exposed is a vital tool to containing the spread of COVID-19,” Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said. “PCG will assist local health departments as they need to scale up contact tracing efforts in their communities.”
The work to increase the Community Contact Tracing Corps began with the assistance of the Rutgers School of Public Health, which began recruiting and training workers drawn from graduate programs and alumni of graduate programs throughout New Jersey.
Recognizing that the demand for contact tracer capacity could reach into the thousands, the Department solicited vendor proposals to help scale the Corps across the state.
“Public Consulting Group is pleased to lend its capabilities to New Jersey’s COVID-19 response,” William Mosakowski, Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer, said. “Our national approach mirrors New Jersey’s – we work with both local health departments and local community members to make contact tracing effective.”
The request of quotes yielded 64 quotes total which were received, reviewed, and technically scored by a 7-person committee representing the Departments of Health, Treasury and Labor and Workforce Development.
PCG will work to ensure that as many of these new contact tracers as possible come from and reflect the diversity of the communities they will be working in.
They will be able to effectively communicate and engage with individuals who speak languages other than English and have diverse cultures.
“PCG’s approach is to build partnerships with the existing, robust network of stakeholders and community groups, especially in communities of color, to ensure the hiring pipeline reflects the geographic and cultural diversity and that hiring decisions do as well,” Mosakowski said.
All individuals on-boarded for contact tracing will be required to complete Contact Tracing training developed with Rutgers School of Public Health.