Evidence-Based Intervention Fact Sheets
Building Trust with Immigrant Families
Mid-Valley Providers Consortium
Educational District 105
Yakima, Washington
Safe Schools/Healthy Students grantee
A Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) project in Washington State is overcoming barriers to providing mental health services to immigrant children and families in a rural community. Key to its success is using school-based mental health services and gaining the trust of immigrant parents by building on already-established relationships.
For the last 50 years, Washington’s Yakima Valley has attracted seasonal workers—mainly from Mexico—who come to pick apples, pears, and other crops. In recent years, many of these workers and their families have settled in the valley, attracted by better paying jobs in agricultural warehouses and the opportunity to open small businesses to serve this growing immigrant community. However, children from immigrant families sometimes start school at a disadvantage due to health, language, and acculturation issues. In some cases, these types of issues can also lead to behavioral and mental health problems.
Delivering mental health services in a rural area with a large immigrant population can be challenging. In addition to language and cultural issues, families may be reluctant to work with agencies whose purpose and intentions they do not fully understand. Transportation is another barrier. Many families do not have cars, and using public transportation to bring children to community-based mental health services can be time-consuming or simply not possible. Long waits for appointments can also present a barrier to accessing services, especially during the agricultural season, when the influx of seasonal workers increases demands on community-based services by 40 percent.
In response to these problems, eight school districts joined with community mental health services, juvenile justice and law enforcement agencies, and the county substance abuse coalition to form the Mid-Valley Providers Consortium (MVPC). The consortium seeks to strengthen and coordinate services, including services to immigrants and seasonal workers. In 2002, MVPC, under the auspices of Educational District 105, applied for and received an SS/HS grant.
The SS/HS initiative addresses problems posed by transportation issues by bringing mental health services to the schools. School-based Resource Management Teams refer children who might benefit from the initiative’s assistance to the case manager-therapists. Identifying such children in this way decreases the burden on parents, who may not always recognize that their child could benefit from specialized services, making this a more effective means of connecting youth with services.
Ann Allen, SS/HS Project Director and Director of Learning Support for ESD 105, says that a key strategy for delivering services is to build trust between the families and the case manager-therapists. Allen relates that it is not only essential that the case manager-therapists have Spanish-language skills but also that they are deeply sensitive to the culture of the families being served and have considerable experience in treating children and adolescents.
Another key strategy to success is engaging in active outreach and using existing connections with families to create new relationships. For example, although the case manager-therapists work in the schools, they often first meet a family by accompanying a home visitor to the family’s residence, thus allowing someone the family trusts to introduce the case manager-therapist in an environment where the family feels safe. Going to the family home, instead of requiring the parents to come to the school, addresses both transportation and trust issues.
Ann Allen credits these outreach efforts with building bridges between the program and families—bridges that help connect children with services. This connection is proving worthwhile; data collected by the eight participating school districts demonstrate that youth involved in the initiative have reduced rates of suspensions and disciplinary referrals and improved attendance and grades.
For more information on the Yakima Valley SS/HS initiative, contact Ann Allen by telephone at 509-454-3107 or by e-mail at anna@esd105.wednet.edu.
