“The Only Thing We Can Do is Treat Them Well<i>Here</i>”: Public Health With Latinos in a New Immigrant Destination

Abstract

Human service agencies in new immigrant destinations often lack the experience and bilingual staff required to provide inguistically and culturally appropriate services to Latino immigrant families. This qualitative study examined the ways one new destination public health agency responded to this demographic shift. The agency leveraged a culture of collaboration and a team approach so that serving immigrants became the responsibility of all workers, not only a few bilingual staff. Implications for practice including the potential benefits and pitfalls of including monolingual workers in immigrant clients' care are discussed.