Re: Need Alcohol Prevention help

[Guest guest]

ms miller, i do not have any formal information for you but am looking

for general information myself regarding migrant worker's health care in

my community.

i had contacted government health information and delivery system sites

in regards to the apparent lack of medical, dental and mental health care

available to a large Jamaican (primarily) migrant population present in

my town and a few neighboring towns. I had already checked the sites

referred me to their on-line. None of the clinics were within reach of

the workers. I explained the lack of transportation and distance to the

identified clinics but got no response.

If you know of any funded agency that would be willing to help me

identify, and document what these workers need, want and how to bring it

to them, I would appreciate it. My church has an outreach committee,

however they are a quite a distance from this town, and I don't want to

recreate the wheel if there is help available.

Regarding alcohol abuse here, the only site for social congregation of

the migrant workers here outside of the rather bare barracks they are put

up in, is the one or two liquor stores in our town. Lack of diversion

would be one of the major contributors to alcohol abuse here, and the

lack of tolerance by our community for public congregation of this

population outside of the parking lot of package stores.

I have worked on the Navajo reservation, and work in mental health and

substance abuse in the northeast (caucasion and hispanic). If you are

working with alcoholic hispanic or native indian men, there is

considerable resistance to abstaining using influences such as guilt over

effects on wife and children. Helping them to identify and maintain a

link to a male peer, older male family member, priest or possibly their

mother if surviving in their home base community may bolster 'reason' for

abstaining or quitting.

Identifying then repeatedly returning to their original goals for working

in such difficult conditions-i.e. to possibly improve or just sustain

their family AS THE HEAD OF THE HOUSEHOlD may help bolster reasons for

abstaining or quitting for the hispanic males, definately wont hold up

for the matriarchal system of some native indians such as with the

navajo. Is there a subgroup culture that is identified as matriarchal?

Good luck,

merrilee leonhardt, m.d.

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[Guest guest]

Dear Esther:

Dear Esther:

Your work sounds wonderful... I work with Promotoras here in California,

and am currently developing curriculum that addresses among other things,

mental health/substance abuse, in a binational (Mexico-California)

context. Upon completion, this curriculum will be available and if

you would like a copy can be sent to you. I believe that it will

also be available on the Web.

Have you tried contacting the National Latino Council on Alcohol and

Tobacco Prevention? They are out of DC, and their telephone number

is 202-265-8054. You can also try contacting my friend and

colleague Lemus, who is the Director of the Community Outreach

Worker/Promotoras Project in California. Her e-mail is MHoll67174@...

Saludos and buenas suerte y adelente!!

Padilla, PA

Senior Health Sciences Analyst

University of California

Office of the Vice President - Health Affairs

1111 lin Street, 11th Floor

Oakland, CA 94607-5200

tel: (510)287-3807

fax: (510)987-9715