Middlesex County assesses Hispanic outreach programs BY CHRIS GAETANO Staff Writer EDISON- Areport recently released by Middlesex County states that while there are many public services available to Hispanic residents, accessing themcan be problematic. The report's results were released during a forum on Feb. 8 at Middlesex County College. The focus is that while Hispanics make up about 17 percent of the county's population, most of the county's agencies looked at in the study reported that only about one to 10 percent of the people they serve are of Hispanic origin. "There is somewhat of a problem with Latinos accessing services for one reason or another," said Jeffrey Vega, chair of theMiddlesex County Hispanic Affairs Commission. The report also stated that 36 percent of agencies reported that they had identified gaps in providing their programs to Hispanics. Many of these gaps are related to language, such as a lack of bilingual staff or formswritten in Spanish.Another need that was identifiedwas for additional support for undocumented health-care patients, including mental health and substance abuse counseling. Chief among the recommendations for meeting the needs of the county's Hispanic population is to establish a county-level Office of Hispanic Affairs that would coordinate outreach efforts. Freeholder James Polos said that there is currently a search for grant money to fund this office. "If it were created, we would envision that office would coordinate access to many of the services that already exist.As you can see, there is a lack of knowledge to some extent of what everyone is providing. So, we see the county office as a coordinator, not a duplicator, of services," he said. The other recommendationsmade by the report include sponsorship of job fairs to attract more bilingual employees, developing a network of bilingual employees to provide translation services, translating county and agency forms into Spanish, a marketing campaign promoting awareness of services available toHispanic residents, and providing "cultural competency training." According to Vega, the report took about a year to compile, with information gleaned froma combination of public community forums and surveys sent to various county agencies and programs. At this point, he said, the county will look into ways to fund and implement the report's recommendations. "Right now…[We'll] continue to look at the recommendations, finding a development around establishing an office that can take the lead in making sure these kinds of recommendations are done," he said. Polos said that the impetuous came from a general concern over several years as to whether the countywas reaching out toHispanics in a truly effectiveway, and so he and Freeholder Blanquita Valenti formed a task force to examine the issue. The report also says that the towns with the most Hispanic residents in Middlesex County include PerthAmboy,with a 70 percent population, New Brunswick, with a 40 percent population, Carteret, with a 23 percent population, andWoodbridge, with a 16 percent population.