Outreach to Mexican Americans

Abstract

Recent social work literature retiveness or irrelevance of traditional fleets the profession's concern with demethods of delivering services to livering services to racial and ethnic minorities. The provision of counseling minority groups. It is frequently argued and psychotherapeutic services has that the needs of these groups for social been regarded as a special problem be services are greater than those of their cause the impact of cultural differences counterparts in the majority culture beis most acutely felt in the relationship cause of the long-term effects of disbetween counselor or therapist and crimination. Yet the use of existing client. Efforts are accordingly being services by minority group members is made to adapt traditional helping often disproportionately low. methods to clients from specific minor In general, the underutilization of soity cultures, and the relevance of alter cial services by minority groups has native treatment techniques to minority been assumed to result from the ineffecgroups is also being explored. How ever, little attention is being paid to Ted R. Watkins, DSW, is Associate increasing the use by minorities of ser Professor, Department of Sociology, vices as they are currently delivered. It Social Work Program, University of is the authors' conviction that tradi Texas at Arlington. At the time tional social work practice has much the project was begun, he was Director to offer minority clients and that of Counseling Services, Family the first step toward increasing services and Individual Services Associato these groups must be outreach—the tion of Tarrant County, Texas. marketing of services in a manner that Richard Gonzales, MSSW, is Manager gives existing methods a chance to of Social Services, Tarrant County work. This conviction is supported by Hospital District, John Peter Smith the authors' experience in developing Hospital, Fort Worth, Texas. At the an outreach project for time the project was begun, he clients as an integral part of a was Outreach Worker, Family and traditional family counseling agency. Individual Services Association of The present article is a description of Tarrant County. the planning, implementation, and re suits of the project and a discussion of generalizations from the experience. It should be noted that several terms are used in the Southwest to refer to Americans of descent: Chi cano, Mexican American, Mex ican, Latino, Latin American, Spanish, and Hispanic. Each has its own connotations and reflects the age, politics, and socioeconomic status of the user. In the authors' expe rience, Mexican American is the most neutral of these terms, and it was used in all communications relating to the outreach project to avoid offending specific groups in the target population. It is also used throughout this article.