ADVANCING HEALTH AND EDUCATION FOR UNDERSERVED POPULATIONS IN THE US 

   •  Improving Provider/Parent Communication Across Cultures: Often, parents from non-dominant cultures may have a different understanding of how children grow and develop from that implicit in the mainstream health and education systems in the US. They may also value traits, abilities and behaviors differently. This can lead to misunderstandings between parents and providers (teachers; nurses and doctors) that may negatively affect children’s health and development.

CTripleS has developed training sessions for health and education providers that address culturally influenced barriers to effective communication with parents about children’s health and development.. Developed out of two years of field research with Mexican migrant farmworker parents, the session introduces providers to differing conceptions of lifecycle development and change that may bear on how parents interpret and respond to advice given by health care and education personnel. 

w        Healthy Environments, Healthy Kids: Children from low income families are often exposed to conditions in their homes and neighborhoods that have a negative impact on their health. In many cases, these negative conditions can be ameliorated through “low tech” approaches to environmental modification, while in others a solution calls for action by duly constituted authorities. 

CTripleS has developed a training session designed for community health personnel to introduce techniques used in the international development field for increasing participation in community assessment. The session describes the application of these techniques to the issues of child health and safety, and presents ways that health personnel can involve parents in identifying threats to health in the home and the neighborhood, and formulating action plans to address these problems.

w        International Migration - why people leave home: Increasingly, educators and health care providers are confronted with the challenges of serving people who come to the US from other countries. Home country conditions often are relevant to the decision to migrate, and contribute to the physical and emotional state of the migrant on arrival. CTripleS has developed a workshop to introduce health and education personnel to a variety of circumstances faced by migrants in their home environments. From hurricanes and earthquakes to civil unrest to the effects of free trade agreements on subsistence farmers, the session is designed to increase awareness of the complexity of  migrants’ decision making. Based on case studies from Mexico and Central America, the session emphasizes that the decision to migrate is often not one of “bread and butter,” but of survival itself.