Creciendo Juntos – Working Together

Human Services Working Group Meeting Notes

Thursday, December 7, 2-3 pm, United Way Conference Room

Present: Ivonne Lopez, Nila Saliba, Jon Nafziger, Rhonda Miska, Meg Camp, Janet Muse

1) Following up on one of the projects that our Working Group committed to at the CJ Retreat, we discussed the possibility of a Spanish language help line. Jon shared that there is a proposal in to get funding to have a part time (or maybe full time) bilingual staff member in Information and Referral at United Way. Review is currently going on and the decision will be made in March. The funds would come from the social service budgets – 12k is being requested from the city, and 12k from the county. We envision a drop in office (located in the United Way building) as well as a phone line where a bilingual person with knowledge of the various services available could provide information and referrals, as well as advocate for Spanish-speaking residents, though not do ongoing case management. We stressed that we don’t want to reinvent the wheel, and determined that no existing agency provide these services. Also, it was agreed that it would make all of our jobs easier and more streamlined to have such a phone line/drop in office.

2) Our Working Group is responsible for the CJ Plenary on Thurs Jan 25 from 10-11:30 at the Albemarle County Office Building. Several Cjers attended the November Latino Health Summit in Richmond: Maria Richards, Fanny Smedile, Nila Saliba, Janet Muse, Jadi (last name?). We agreed that our first choice for presenter would be to have Maria Gomez, a nurse with a masters in Public Health, come and speak on Effective Strategies for Delivering Culturally Appropriate Health Care Services to Latinos, and possibly an overview of Latino health in Virginia. Nila will contact Maria Gomez. If she is not available, we will look at inviting Bonnie Larson from H’burg who works with the interpreter training program. Janet recommended we show a brief (7 minute) video (made by the Maryland State Health Dept) on interpreting which shows the difference in treatment two Spanish-speakers receive depending on if they used interpreters or not.

3) Also at the retreat we decided we wanted to work with the local hospitals to ensure sufficient interpretation services at the hospitals. Since Jadi and Sally LeBeau were not able to attend the meeting, we were not able to move forward on this point in terms of UVa Hospital. It was shared that there are concerns that interpreters are overbooked, or may not show. Another question was raised about emergency room interpretation. Jon agreed to contact Sue Winslow, the Martha Jefferson Community Service director. Janet Muse said she could contact Pat Cheeks, also with MJH.

Announcements: Rhonda encouraged working group members to put the dates of February 15 and March 15 (both Thursday) on their calendars for the two IMPACT (Interfaith Movement Promoting Action by Congregations Together) large meetings. IMPACT is working on both issues of public transport and affordable housing. One of the issues of interest of those of us who work with Hispanics is that IMPACT may work to extend bus service down 5th St Ext, to the Albemarle County Office Building and to Southwood Trailer Park.

Rhonda also announced that on a national conference call on immigration reform, an organizer in Scranton, PA shared that Hazleton, PA (which passed strict anti-immigrant local ordinances a few months ago) has been abandoned by many, and many restaurants, shops and businesses have been closed. The ordinance has had a very negative impact on the city as many the immigrants have left. We all agreed it would be good to get the word out about the negative impact of such an ordinance.

Our next meeting will be Thursday, Jan 11 at 3 pm at United Way when we will finalize details for our plenary and talk more about the interpretation at local hospitals.