Latino Outreach Leads to Important Partnerships
by Stephen Hyde
Jan 31, 2024
community engagement
Compassion & Choices’ Latino Engagement team is working with several great organizations to help empower people to chart their end-of-life journey, including a Ventanillas de Salud (VDS) program in Nevada. VDS, a Mexican government public health education initiative designed to provide reliable information on health topics, has over 52 sites nationwide, 10 of which C&C is engaged with. One of the sites is Research, Education and Access for Community Health (REACH), a nonprofit based in Las Vegas that aims to provide health services, health literacy and awareness for the Hispanic and general population in Nevada.
Established in 2011 and helping over 120,000 mainly uninsured people each year, REACH recently established a low-cost medical clinic to serve its community members and improve the health and well-being of Latino individuals and families through affordable and culturally competent medical care. The clinic offers food, transportation and assistance for patients while offering family medicine, pediatrics, OB-GYN, mental health, cardiology and nephrology services.
C&C works with staff at the medical facility to empower community members by engaging in conversation and providing resources about end-of-life planning. C&C infographics are on the monitors in the waiting area, and our end-of-life toolkit is available. The Latino Outreach team also provides training to the community health workers (CHWs) and medical team, ensuring that the clinic is well prepared to help people make informed end-of-life decisions. The CHWs then offer education sessions in the waiting area to large groups that are encouraged to seek further information from a CHW in a more specialized, personal setting. This approach allows active discussion with community members about the completion of an advance directive and an exploration of end-of-life options. Latino Engagement Manager Leslie Martinez Ramirez says of the partnership: “It offers us a unique opportunity to provide valuable information and education. Behavioral change often requires exposure multiple times before individuals become actively engaged in their own healthcare. The more people who see this information, the more people will take action.”
