QUESTION
What are the challenges faced by immigrant older adults in accessing services in New York City beyond language barriers, and how are they being addressed?
1:30:53
·
3 min
Council Member Rita Joseph and various officials discuss the barriers immigrant older adults face in accessing health and social services in New York City beyond language hurdles, emphasizing the lack of awareness about available resources and the role of community and faith-based organizations in overcoming these challenges.
- Lack of awareness among immigrant older adults about available services is identified as a major barrier.
- Community organizations play a crucial role in educating and providing case management to address the specific needs of different communities.
- The New York City Department for the Aging has launched multimedia campaigns in multiple languages to increase service awareness among diverse communities.
- Cultural sensitivity and trust issues, especially among undocumented older adults, highlight the importance of using trusted community and faith-based organizations to build relationships and disseminate information.
- The inquiry underlines the need for tailored approaches to address the unique challenges faced by immigrant older adults in accessing services.
Rita Joseph
1:30:53
I have a few questions around what specific challenges do immigrant older adults face in excess accessing health care social services and other resources in New York other than language barrier?
1:31:05
What is the other barriers?
1:31:07
And how do you bring remove those barriers.
1:31:09
So our seniors, like, consummability said, not that they don't need the service, but they just don't know how to get it.
1:31:15
And what or how we plan on removing some of these barriers.
Anya Herasme
1:31:25
I think that's an interesting question.
1:31:26
We I think a lot of the issue is just not not even knowing what exists.
1:31:31
Out there.
1:31:32
And so that's I think a big part of the cabinet for older New Yorkers is how do we break down those silos between the agencies and get the information out to the programs.
1:31:41
A lot of what our centers and our orgs do is education.
1:31:44
And so they bring in presentations on different topics and that the ideas that they they identify what is missing kind of in that community because it differs.
1:31:54
Right?
1:31:54
Every every community has different needs or or has less knowledge of certain topics.
1:31:58
And so we really rely on them to identify what those needs are of the older adults and bring that information.
1:32:04
Almost all of our programs also offer case assistance or the Nordics 2 case management as well.
1:32:09
So that's another opportunity to help anybody with you know, getting benefits or finding out more information, whatever those needs are.
UNKNOWN
1:32:18
Just just to follow-up.
1:32:20
Go ahead.
Penney Vachiraprapun
1:32:21
I think there's also the issues that older adults face or the same issues that immigrant older adults face.
1:32:28
So what our our agency focuses on also just making sure that older adults of of all, you know, backgrounds are aware of our services.
1:32:37
So we we have we make sure that our our services are are are noticed to all backgrounds in all communities.
1:32:46
So for example, we have a join us campaign that we that we put out in 2022.
1:32:52
That campaign was a multimedia campaign that was created in print and digital format, radio, and television.
1:33:01
And those ads were published in English, Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Russian to make sure that we reached communities of all backgrounds in And
Rita Joseph
1:33:10
Are you using ethnic media to get your messaging across?
1:33:13
PR.
1:33:14
I didn't hear Haitian Creole in there.
1:33:15
I still have seniors in my district.
1:33:17
I represent a lot Haitian American.
1:33:19
A Haitian community where they still didn't know about the screen.
1:33:23
We we had to personally pick up the phone call to let them know.
1:33:26
Yeah.
Alexa Avilés
1:33:27
It's great.
Rita Joseph
1:33:27
Yes.
1:33:27
Screen.
Penney Vachiraprapun
1:33:28
Screws, unfortunately, not our program.
1:33:30
That's that's a department.
Rita Joseph
1:33:31
No.
1:33:31
I'm just giving you an example, and they it was through our office that we had to pick up the phone and call the individuals that did not play the so this is where the CBOs would come in play, and language access is very important to our seniors and cultural.
Miguel Santana
1:33:43
Are you
Rita Joseph
1:33:43
are we doing cultural?
1:33:44
Most communities, sometimes they don't even wanna tell your birthday.
1:33:47
But they have to feel comfortable if you have the cultural norms for them to feel comfortable enough to open up to you in terms of also deportation.
1:33:55
Our communities, undocumented immigrant, older New Yorkers are not gonna come to you and tell you information about them because they don't trust you.
1:34:03
1, your government agency 2, how do they know you're not working with ICE?
1:34:07
So we have we face those things in a lot of our communities, older adults, immigrant communities, they go underground.
1:34:13
When these things happen, especially during the pandemic, all of our older adults that were undocumented, they went underground.
1:34:18
So they had to have a trusted face.
1:34:19
For them and using faith based is a it's a great way to get the message across because they believe in their pastors.
1:34:26
I say something has has a different meaning, but if the pastor says you're gonna do this, this is what they're going to do.
1:34:31
So I think also you should use CDOs to come in and play important important partnership because there's the trust there.
1:34:37
So the trust has to be built with our immigrants, especially undocumented older adults.