Closing the Health Care Gap

Nearly 19 percent of Bostonians identified as Hispanic on the 2020 census, and since 1980, Latinx communities have accounted for 92 percent of the city’s population growth. And these numbers are likely to keep rising, as almost a third of Boston’s children are Latinx. Yet it’s not always easy for these residents to find or access social workers who are fluent in their language and culture. To address this critical gap, the BC School of Social Work’s Latinx Leadership Initiative (LLI) has received a $600,000 grant from Mass General Brigham to increase the state’s workforce of bilingual and bicultural social workers.

The grant will allow the LLI to provide living stipends and professional development for students in the School of Social Work’s master of social work program as they complete behavioral rotations in community health settings that predominantly serve Latinx communities. After the inaugural cohort of four fellows graduate in 2022, LLI and Mass General Brigham—the state’s largest health care provider—will select at least ten fellows each academic year. “There is an acute need for behavioral health providers in Latinx communities, especially after those communities have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19,” said Associate Professor Rocío Calvo, the LLI’s founding director and the new grant’s principal investigator. “Mass General Brigham’s goal is to address that need, and we have a history of training professionals to do that work successfully.”

The funds will also bolster Calvo’s ongoing research on effective strategies for training and supporting bilingual, bicultural social workers. Calvo and her team plan to interview and survey LLI alumni to identify systemic barriers that Latinx social workers face on the job. “The interventions of this grant target the systemic issues that prevent Latinx social workers from developing their careers and Latinx clients from accessing adequate care,” she said.

Since Calvo founded the LLI in 2013, some 185 students have graduated from the program, in which all eight of BC’s core social work courses are taught entirely in Spanish. Alumni today work with Latinx and Hispanic communities in diverse settings around the globe. The initiative has been recognized as a Model Program for Diversity Education by the Council on Social Work Education’s Center for Diversity and Social & Economic Justice, and it received a top national award from Excelencia! in Education in 2020.

“The LLI is pathbreaking, and it does far more than train bilingual social workers,” said BC School of Social Work Dean Gautam N. Yadama. “The goal is to transform social services and health systems to sustain a high level of engagement with Latinx families and communities to address their compound needs. In partnering with Mass General Brigham, we are extending the reach of our premier social work training that is evidence-based and culturally attuned to serving our Latinx populations in Massachusetts.”