By Dr. Pereta Rodriguez, DSW, CSW, Co-Chair Children and Family Services
(October 2000)

The Committee for Hispanic Children and Families and the Coalition for Asian American Children and Families found that the participants in their 1999 survey of child welfare agencies had concerns with the ability of foster care preventive service agencies to effectively reach culturally and ethnically diverse populations.

Similarly, executive directors and directors of prevention programs serving the Latino population have repeatedly identified various issues in foster care practice and policies that adversely affect Latino families.

Currently, the practice in Child Welfare is to serve families in the neighborhood and communities and attempt to develop working relations that focus on family -to-family linkages and thereby establish and enhance strong ties between families.

When the families are of the same Latino cultural background, cultural sensitivity may not be a problem, although the economic background of the two families may not be the same. The hope of the Administration of Children Services (ACS) in their family to family approach is that a strong foster care family will provide a positive example to the family that is needy, thereby helping them to learn a more successful and functional coping style.

This approach is geared toward helping families maximize their personal resources. The theory, assumption and experience of social workers who have worked numerous years with families in the field, on the front line, is that all family have resources.

The issues in prevention stem from policies that are poverty-stricken themselves. Poverty stricken because prevention services are often provided in communities where the majority of the housing stock is in deplorable deteriorated conditions with multiple violations. For many families, personal financial resources are often one paycheck away from welfare. Add to this factor that there is a consistently "inequitable allocation of resources (funds) to preventive and intervention services for families, children and kinship parents." And, "although child welfare agencies have a responsibility to recruit and train a pool of qualified foster and adoptive parents who reflect the ethnic mix of children in care, funds have not been allocated for this purpose."

Our culture relies on family ties. Those recently arrived Latinos that come to New York City have stronger ties and a greater belief in family members helping one another than those that are here longer. Those Latino families that have been in New York City longer, and this is true in whatever city and state they settle in, have learned and experienced disappointments in relying on family members, especially for financial help. In most cases, relatives may themselves be just one paycheck away from Welfare.

Latino kin are effective extended family members. Prevention can be effective when it is practiced by providers who are Latinos themselves and in a setting that is Latino focused. What we Latinos have in common is a strong tie and commitment to children, and the natural desire and tendency is to help out. If resources can be injected into the unstable family early on, then both the unstable family and the family member helping out have a sense of hope that things will begin to go right.

What are the "things" that can be injected?

1. Having a family meeting with the family member who is helping out and the member who is unstable and discuss with a social worker, what are the issues involved in the family instability and what can be done. This means a full discussion of what options are available and who can help out and in what way. The discussion should focus on solutions and be free from judgment and recrimination.
2. Placing the children in the helping relative's home, for a defined period, and discussion as what will be expected by both sets of adults as well as the children, and identifying what finances will be needed and how ACS can be helpful.
3. Going to the school and discussing the child's school program and what could be done to stimulate the child and to retain his/her interest in school.
4. Social workers and child welfare workers who will act as guardians of the family and facilitate access to the resources required to strengthen families and children.

• Investment in Puerto Rican/Latino families to develop human capital-provide job training and skill development, especially to women who are sole providers for their children; provide a living wage to move families out of poverty, and support services such as daycare and health care to promote self-sufficiency.
• Partnership and investment of resources with local Community-Based Organization to identify Puerto Rican/Latino children and families at risk prior to family crisis; prevention of family breakdown is the goal.
• Competency training for all workers in the prevention, foster care and adoption field. Key is training in cultural competence that facilitates:
  • intervention that is based on the cultural values of the targeted group;
  • strategies that make up the intervention that reflect the subjective cultural characteristics of the members of the targeted group; and
  • the components of the strategies that reflect the behavioral preferences and expectations of the targeted group.

Personalizing, or individualizing, services is also a way of recognizing and accepting that all family members have strengths. Further, it recognizes that individuals from another culture and country have common sense. They may not have the expertise to handle the tempo of our city but the "blows" of life make them quick learners.