Diversity Fellow Project, Jackeline Saez-Rosario
Making Accessibility a Reality: Addressing Communication Needs of non-English-speaking Hispanic Families of Children with Special Healthcare Needs
Aiming to reduce communication barriers that currently exist between non-English-speaking Hispanic families of children with special healthcare needs and healthcare service providers, Family Support and Health Care Alliance Delaware (Family SHADE), with support from an AUCD Diversity Fellow, surveyed the functionality of existing services, examined current efforts in addressing the problem, and identified key community members to assist in taking future steps.
Project Narrative
1. Please describe your activities during your fellowship experience. Describe your final capstone project(s).
Fall/Spring (Training/UCEDD)
Diversity and introduction to AUCD’s Diversity and Inclusion Toolkit were key parts of my fellowship at the University of Delaware, but they were not the only ones. My involvement as a fellow ranged from helping within the Disability Studies Minor activities and outreach to surveying and inputting data for grant information, and helping to prepare and coordinate center events. More specifically, I was in charge of addressing cultural competency within one of the given units within the center. As new and detailed as the Toolkit was, very few staff were really aware of its purpose and questioned whether I was adding additional work to their existing projects. Throughout my rotations within the units, I felt a workshop was the best way of addressing the misunderstanding and confusion that staff members encountered about the Toolkit, thus making the workshop my capstone project. My goal was to create an interactive workshop that would allow for the staff to learn about the Toolkit and how to apply it. However, in order to serve beyond just a tutorial on the Toolkit, the workshop consisted of multiple layers such as defining cultural competency and its importance, current applications of it within the center/projects and a case study project at the end to summarize all the concepts. The workshop had a great impact on the center overall. The Center made plans to focus on areas such as diversifying staff composition, diversifying search committees, and creating more minority outreach programs.
Summer (Community/ Poster/Ongoing)
Having created institutional change, I wanted to also give back to my community. My knowledge of the Toolkit was helpful as I continued my fellowship as an intern for Family SHADE, a project within the Health and Wellness Unit at the Center for Disabilities Studies. Family SHADE is an alliance of organizations that provide services for youth and children with special health care needs. Since I grew up in a culture where communication barriers and fear to reach out were common realities, I decided to work with Family SHADE to develop strategies members organizations can use to serve the non-English speaking Hispanic population. My final project for this part of my fellowship will be showcased as a poster with the summary of my results at the AUCD conference this fall of 2016. The project included creating a survey to understand the services already provided by member organization to non-English speaking Hispanic families, as well as creating an interactive discussion between both Hispanic service providers and recipients. The information obtained from both sources were summarized to cultivate an interactive discussion with all member organizations and a Hispanic service provider and recipient panel. The goal of this discussion was to come together as an overall community to develop concrete universal strategies that could be implemented to aid non-English speaking families, as well as introduce changes that can be made state-wide and policy-wide to help organizations.
2. What did you gain from being a Diversity Fellow?
My opportunity as a fellow has allowed me to not only learn about the disability community and the impact of diversity within it but to apply what I learned to create change. By strengthening my analytical, research, writing and communication skills, the fellowship has allowed me to step out of my comfort zone and network with disability advocates. I was also able to attend various conferences I alone would have not even thought about attending. I had opportunities to help translate information for families who called in or provided resources and information. This opportunity allowed me to share my passion for helping and interacting with my community in the same exact way I hope to in the future, as a special education lawyer. When I first started my fellowship, I was told by one of the unit directors: “What you learn in textbooks and classrooms is really different to what you will experience and see in the real world, you can only get so much from theories and hypotheticals.”
3. What recommendations do you have for other fellows?
When I reflect on my experiences as a fellow, I can say that he was right. This experience has molded me as a leader, allowing me to learn skills that you only obtain from getting out of your comfort zone and taking that next step. I learned to think out of the box and to not only explore issues within my community but to challenge them and to develop strategies and ways to execute change for them. For these reasons and more, I believe that the fellowship is a great program for any student to consider.