County assesses Hispanic outreach programs BY CHRIS GAETANO Staff Writer EDISON - A report recently released by Middlesex County states that while there are many public services available to Hispanic residents, accessing them can be problematic. The report's results were released during a forum on Feb. 8 atMiddlesex County College, which was attended by various county workers, as well as business leaders, academics and representatives from organizations. The main point of the report 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 theMiddlesexCountyHispanicAffairsCommission. 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 forms written in Spanish.Another need that was identified, though not as strongly as the language-related ones, was 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. He went on to say that the office would stress coordination of already existing programs. "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," said Polos. The other recommendations made 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 to Hispanic residents, and providing "cultural competency training." According to Vega, the report took about a year to compile, with information gleaned from a 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," said Vega. Polos said that the impetuous came from a general concern over several years as to whether the county was reaching out to Hispanics in a truly effective way, 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 Perth Amboy, with a 70 percent population, New Brunswick, with a 40 percent population, Carteret, with a 23 percent population, and Woodbridge, with a 16 percent population.