A Model to Improve the Utilization of Health and Social Services in Latino Communities

Abstract

There are two salient issues beginning to impact drastically on health and social services in the nation: nativist anti-immigrant hysteria among the populace and President Clinton's national health care proposal. This article is neither an examination of the nativist anti-immigrant hysteria nor of the merits of the President's health care plan. Rather, the focus here is to propose a model to improve the utilization of health and social services to Latinos despite nativism and outcome of the final health care program.

Bilingual Social Workers: Language and Service Complexities

“…Agencies using this preferred solution often find that the growing number of LEP clients strains their capacity to recruit and retain qualified workers with the necessary language skills (Boyle, Nackerud, & Kilpatrick, 1999;Lecca, Gutierrez, & Tijerina, 1996). This situation is occurring throughout California, and is acute in specific locales such as San Diego, where agencies are presently encountering a shortage of bilingual social workers.…”

“…This practice of multitasking bilingual workers is also felt at the client level, as such workers are often prevailed upon to provide services that fall outside the formal mission of the agency or to provide additional informal help, such as translating a letter or speaking to a landlord (Engstrom & Min, 2004;Uttal, 2006). Because of the pressing agency and client needs for bilingual services, some scholars have called for cultural competency to be broadened to the entire agency (Uttal, 2006), and noted that management of bilingual staff should be ethically sensitive (Lecca et al, 1996).…”