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SLO County Health Access Update

Connecting Children Ages 0-5 & Their Families to Health Care

January 2025

Information and articles from these newsletters are housed on the San Luis Obispo County Health Access website. The website is updated frequently and is intended as a resource for professionals working with children ages 0-5 and their families.

Please visit: SLOHealthAccess.org.

To view this newsletter in your browser click here.

5 Top Outreach Tips

The First 5 Health Access Training Project recently facilitated a series of workshops designed to improve outreach with immigrant families. The tips and tools included effective ways to communicate with residents who may have low literacy levels and speak Spanish or Mixteco. Here are five key tips for developing outreach content:


1. Identify your audience. Gain a clear understanding of what they care about and what language they speak. Where do they access information and who do they trust? Choose a format that is accessible for them.


For example: for lower-literacy audiences, include a phone number to call, use images that help people understand the words, and don't rely on print - consider radio and videos to get the word out.


2. Narrow your topic. What do you want your audience to do or learn? What is your call to action (ex: call a number, attend an event)? Be specific, clear and concise. Avoid jargon and acronyms.


3. Simplify your message. Use who, what, when, where, why, how to guide the development of your outreach. When possible, use imagery to help share your message. Make it easy to connect using a photo or voice recording of your trusted messenger.


4. Test your product. Ask a client or coworker to interact with your outreach material and share their takeaways and questions. Ask how folks heard about an event or service to learn what’s working.

5. Share! Create a distribution plan to ensure your content is circulated in a timely manner. Modify your content to use on a variety of media platforms. Make it easy for agency partners to share by providing a kit with all the info they need to educate their clients.


Click here for a Client Outreach Development Worksheet.

For more information and training on this topic, contact us! becca@carselgroup.com, 805-674-0776

Resources on Stress and Talking About Immigration

Immigration causes unique stressors for children, many of which have been exacerbated recently with heightened fears of deportation.


Two locally-developed resources are available for you to share with immigrant families, to help parents support their children's mental health. Each handout is available in Spanish and English.

"Talking About Immigration: What Does Your Child Understand and Need to Know" gives parents tools for the difficult task of discussing immigration with children. This resource begins with the gentle reminder to parents that "It is difficult to know how to talk about immigration with your child" and continues with a menu of tools for an ongoing dialogue aimed at helping coping with immigrant stress. Click here to download "Talking About Immigration."


"You CAN Help Your Child Feel Less Stressed!" is another valuable resource to empower parents. This handout shares five simple skills for reducing stress, explains how stress affects children differently than adults, and provides information for local mental health resources. Click here to download "You CAN Help Your Child Feel Less Stressed!"

Immigrant Services Guide Updates

UndocuSupport has updated the English version of the Immigrant Services Guide on their website to include Preparedness & Crisis Resources and Know Your Rights information. The updated Spanish page is forthcoming.

Several critical resources included are:

The guide will be updated more frequently in 2025 to reflect the changing political landscape and resources available to aid the undocumented immigrant community.

SLO County Immigrant Support Email Group

If you are not already signed up, please consider registering for the SLO County Immigrant Support email group. This email group is for providers and other interested persons who work with immigrant families in SLO County. For several years, it has been used by organizations to share information with each other and forward resources to distribute to immigrant residents. 

 

During this current time of uncertainty, being a part of this email group allows local organizations to easily share time-sensitive information, communicate effectively, and update everyone on emerging situations. To register, go to https://gaggle.email/join/immigrantsupport@slohealthaccess.org


After registering:

  • You can share out information by sending an email to immigrantsupport@slohealthaccess.org. This email will go out to all the other people in the email group.
  • If you click Reply All to reply to an email that you receive from someone in the group, your reply will go out to everyone in the group. This allows you to reply to questions, add information, and ask follow-up questions that everyone might want to know about.
  • If you just want to reply to the sender, you can just click Reply.
  • You’ll know an email is from this whole email group because it will say [Immigrant Support Email Group] in the Subject line. This information gets added automatically when an email is sent to the group. 
  • You can also sign up for a daily summary if you do not want to receive each email individually.
  • You can view past messages or unsubscribe by clicking the link at the bottom of any email group email.

 

Questions? Becca Carsel, First 5 SLO County Health Access Training Project,  becca@carselgroup.com, 805-674-0776.

Local health referral information at SLOHealthAccess.org
SLOHealthAccess.org has a wealth of information to help you help families, with local resources related to:
  • Practical Resources for Basic Needs
  • Behavioral Health
  • Immigration: safety and service access  
  • Dental
  • Prescriptions
  • Medi-Cal & Covered CA
  • Transportation
  • Special Needs   
  • Parental Substance Use, and 
  • Resources to help parents advocate for services

General needs and system navigation:
Send families in need of help to their local Family Resource Center.

Can't find an answer? 
Let us know and we will find you the information you are looking for. For general questions about health access and health care reform, contact:
Becca Carsel, Health Access Project Director, 
at (805) 674-0776 or becca@carselgroup.com