A year of growth
por Maria Rangel
NWDSA/ABI continues to follow our work plan entitled “Breaking Barriers to Inclusion” with the goal of increasing accessibility to Spanish-speaking families. This allows us to offer the same high-quality services to everyone as well as honor everyone’s starting point and increase the number of Spanish-speaking parents accessing support and resources through our organization.
One of our biggest accomplishments this year was offering our Kindergarten Transition Bootcamp in Spanish for the first time.
We collaborated with Susana Ramírez from Disability Rights Oregon and Paulina Larenas from FACT Oregon to make this a success. All resources and materials were available in Spanish and the training session mirrored the English-language training.
It was important to be able to offer this bootcamp in Spanish and break the language barrier. I could see an increase of engagement, participation, comfort level, and learning with parents, compared to their experiences in English-language-only workshops with interpreters.
Parent feedback confirms the importance of presenting workshops in Spanish. One of the questions in the training evaluation was: “What did you like most about the training?” Almost all the evaluations had the answer: “that everything was in Spanish”.
As Bilingual Coordinator, I am grateful that ABI/NWDSA appreciates my input on programs and trainings, and that my work is supported by the core values of the organization.
