What else might have caused the Head Start caseworkers to resist giving help to Maria?

Question

Carla Hudson, a Black social worker with the Women’s Resource Center (WRC), had worked with Maria Velasquez, a Mexican immigrant and mother of two children, for several years as she struggled to escape a violent home situation. Maria was Carla’s first Spanish-speaking client. Maria’s spoken English was easily understandable, but she could not read or write English well. As Carla assisted Maria in acquiring mainstream services, including Head Start, TANF, Food Stamps, and WIC, she noticed barriers to services that she began to suspect were related to discrimination against Spanish-speaking clients. When two White Head Start caseworkers refused to help Maria attain educational support that she needed in order to gain English literacy, Carla faced the challenge of addressing discrimination issues in another agency and perhaps throughout the service delivery system in Jasper, Alabama.

Answer 1

Head Start had also served Maria for several years. Carla did not know the nature of all their encounters with Maria and only had Maria’s account of their resistance to helping her with school. Carla had talked with the Director of Head Start, who assured her that she would look into the situation. The case did not indicate any other follow-up by Carla after this conversation. It was possible that they had offered some suggestions in the past that Maria had not followed. It was possible that they had simply assessed Maria’s abilities with the English language differently from Carla and had decided that Maria really did not need the tutoring services but had other issues keeping her from doing her best in school. It was also possible that the Head Start staff may have had more expertise in this area than Carla because their program was educationally focused.
The primary mission of Head Start was to provide preschool educational services to economically disadvantaged children. This included providing assistance with all aspects of a child’s environment, including the family, community, and health and social services. Parental involvement was a crucial feature of the program. Different understandings could easily arise in specific cases about what was best or what was needed for a child’s well-being. In Maria’s case, the Head Start staff seemed to be concerned that Maria was not participating as fully as she should. Different assessments of problems and needs by professionals suggest the need for building strong collegial relationships between agencies and professionals that work together in order to avoid stalemate in helping and empowering clients.
One other possibility was that the caseworkers may not have been discriminatory in their actions with Maria specifically, but rather were simply not willing to extend themselves for any of their clients. This would produce unfortunate results for clients who depend upon assistance from professionals.