The DAWN Independent Living Center in Wharton, NJ provides four core services: information and referral, peer support, advocacy, and independent living skills training. They also have recreational programs for people with disabilities, as well as transition and self-advocacy training for students transitioning from school to work or school to post-secondary education. They serve a large group of individuals who are Deaf and provide independent living seminars with American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters at least six to eight times per year. Carmella Slavinski (CS), Executive Director, and Roberta Schwartz (RS), Independent Living Specialist with DAWN provided me (LC) with information about how the organization is serving the Latino community.

LC: How many people do you provide services to annually?

CS: The number of unduplicated clients we served is somewhere around 250-300. But we also serve an additional 1200-1500 callers with information and referrals.

LC: How many of the consumers are Latinos?

CS: I would say a very minimal amount. I'm not even going to say 5% and it should be higher in this area.

LC: Do you have a special program to reach out to Latinos?

CS: We created the First Shore program, where we invited the office of Hispanics Affairs from Morris County and gave them our brochure and they translated it into Spanish. We attend outreach activities that the County offers.   In Morris County they have a very large group of agencies that cater specifically to Latinos and Hispanics, but for some reason no matter what we do, whether we're going out to activities or not, we don't do anything different for Latinos than we do for other populations other than the brochure in Spanish.   From what we understand and what we've been told by people who understand the culture, the Hispanic community tends not to reach out to service providers for assistance. LC: What are the major issues for Latinos with disabilities and their families?

RS: I would say reaching out to government services and benefits.

CS: I'm not sure about other areas but in Dover there are a lot of Latinos who don't have documentation, and that deters them from reaching out whether it be to us or to any other kind of services. There's a fear that by doing so they might jeopardize themselves.   We tried to work with a couple that was Deaf. Their house caught fire and they lost everything. We had a difficult time trying to help them because they were not here legally.   The Red Cross was able to help them by providing a couple of days of shelter, but after that one of our employees was trying to help them find an apartment. We tried to get them emergency services through the county and we couldn't because of their legal status.

We will do whatever we can, to us that is not the problem.   We don't have to determine whether they're here legally or illegally to provide services. Our consumers' legal status is never an issue for our independent living center, but to be able to get them access to other services is the difficult part. In New Jersey there is a new rule that when someone goes to get their license they have to provide documentation including a passport and birth certificate. That's going to preclude those who don't have documentation from obtaining valid drivers licenses.   The government is becoming very strict about who is allowed to get a license. There are a lot of people here who must drive to get to work and now they will not be able to do that.

LC: Do Latinos face different issues than other groups?

CS: Absolutely, their legal status is a major barrier.

LC: Do you have someone on staff who can easily handle inquiries and referrals in Spanish?

CS: We have four full-time staff, two part-time staff, and one of the full-time staff is dedicated specifically to youth and the other three are myself, an administrative assistance and Roberta, who speaks a little bit of Spanish.

RS: I can do interviews. I used to work at hospitals and clinics where most of their clients and staff were Hispanics.

LC: What do you think are the most important actions Proyecto Visión should take to improve the chances for disabled Latinos who want to work?

CS: Well I think from a disability point of view employment is a huge issue, what do they say 70% of people with disabilities are unemployed as opposed to 5% or 6 % of the typical population? I know you said in your brochure that it's even higher for Latinos. I think employment is a huge issue for every single person with a disability.

LC: Let's not say Latinos then, let's just say people with disabilities in general, what could all of our organizations do?

CS: Educate employers, because I believe that they have misconceptions about what it would take to have an employee with disabilities on their work force. They believe that they're going to have to lower their expectations of those individuals, and that potentially the cost to accommodate them will be astronomical which is not true. It's a social mindset and there has to be a tremendous movement to insure we get the word out to employers. Schools don't educate kids with disabilities to achieve like regular students, they water down their curriculums, they don't have high expectations for them, they don't prepare them well to be out in the workforce, and they don't address issues of social skills in the work place.

LC: So we have to educate the employers and the boards of education?

CS: Yes, there has to be a continuum from the time that someone is in school and starts to prepare to be employed. There has to be responsibility on that individual's part to understand that when they're in a place of employment they have to perform, and in the same vein, the educators and the families should expect the same out of disabled employees as anyone. It's just a continuum across the board and we must build bridges to employers and educates those employers so that they're not fearful. My husband, for example, works for a very large corporation, there are at least 150 people working there and not one employee has a disability.

LC: Do you think giving employers incentives for hiring disabled people might work?

CS: There are tax incentives for them already in place and I don't think they take advantage of them. I go out and talk to employers and try to get them to understand it's not going to be a token employee and that they can expect a level of performance just like anybody else. We're not asking for pity, all we're asking for is the opportunity to be employed and to be able to perform in a work setting just like anybody else. Just get us a foot in the door to get that interview that's all that it is going to take.

LC: Do you know of model employers in your city or areas that hire people with disabilities or help them find jobs? Are Latinos included?

RS: The Cendant Corporation in Parsippany, NJ hires people but I don't know about Latinos.

CS: Employment Horizons is one of the most supportive employment agencies in the community that works specifically with people with cognitive disabilities.

CS: Technically the Directional Educational Rehabilitation (DER) is supposed to be the link. They should be the ones out there pounding the pavement, getting out to the employers. The Department of Labor is another one that could help get the employers to understand they're not going to be hiring unqualified people. We're asking for them to just open the door and let somebody have an opportunity, that's it.

LC: In many states, due to the increasing Latino population, there are serious efforts to make services more culturally competent. Are you participating in any of these efforts?

CS: We are part of the State Independent Living Council and many of us participated in seminars addressing cultural competency and reaching out to multi-cultural individuals.   There's probably a lot more we could do, but I wouldn't say there's a concerted effort on the part of the Independent living Centers in New Jersey. Probably the areas that need to be targeted would be the Morris, Essex and Hudson Counties. LC: If you are not able to provide services to disabled Latinos, do you refer them to other organizations or agencies that can?

CS: We try. Usually to the Office of Hispanic Affairs.

RS: There is also a place called "Window of the Spirit" that helps Hispanic immigrants, but I didn't have very much luck with them as they don't call me back.

LC: Did you know about the services of Proyecto Visión before this interview?

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