Making strides to determine how many migrant and seasonal farm workers live where and what services they need or barriers they face, the Northwest Michigan Health Services recently completed Project Puente in Leelanau, Grand Traverse and Antrim counties.
A team of interns and staff from the Migrant Health Service conducted face-to-face interviews with 369 people, who represented 1,314 family members, throughout the growing season. Crunching the data gathered in many ways, the project teased out a number of ideas for change. Not to mention that demand at the Migrant Health Service office in Leelanau County jumped 31 percent this season, a figure staff attribute to the outreach effort.
"We saw a dramatic increase in visits,” said Judith Williams, executive director of the not-for-profit agency. "That was one of the most beautiful things I think came out of this project.”
Spanish for Project Bridge, Project Puente garnered the Migrant Health Service the 2007 Sister Cecilia B. Abhold Award for Outstanding Outreach Practices. Presented at the annual Midwest Migrant Stream Forum in November in Albuquerque, the award was a pleasant surprise for Williams. The key accolade is that this model for outreach is now available for other migrant health service providers around the country to use.
In the Northwest Michigan Health Service's seven-county region, however, the information gathered represents a snapshot of current migrant and grower needs. This information will also help any organization serving this population, which has specific health, language, educational and employment issues.
"We just presented this at the Alliance for Immigrant Action, a new coalition of community organizations in the area,” said Williams. "It's very exciting for us but we offer it with a note of caution: it's a great informal survey but it's truly raw data in a good representative sample of migrants who are in the area.”
A more immediate action is that the agency is developing an agricultural safety course to present to farmworkers next year. In addition, the agency will begin grower and farmworker surveys in other counties in its jurisdictions next year.
"This need came out of the survey,” said Lizzie Horevitz, a public outreach coordinator for the Northwest Michigan Health Services Migrant Health Program.
Horevitz conceived of, designed and launched Project Puente in January with a grower survey in the three counties. She compiled a team of bilingual interns from the University of Michigan and Michigan State University to complete the Farmworker Survey. The survey assessed three main needs: perceived barriers to health care, perceived health problems and what services are needed.
"If anything, people were checking off everything,” noted Williams, of the many health care options asked about such as dental care, diabetes care and education, transportation, prenatal care. "There certainly were priorities but all are needed.”
The project took the team into the dwellings of migrant and seasonal workers to ask detailed questions about issues such as their health concerns, education level, country of origin and family needs. Participants received a Project Puente T-shirt for their efforts and, over the course of the summer, these became recognized and sought after items in the community.
"It was a great way to get into the field and really connect and build relationships with a lot of workers,” said Horevitz. "Also, this was an incredible way to find people who lived in places we wouldn't even know about.”
Facilities such as the Northwest Michigan Health Services Migrant Health Program are rooted in the Migrant Health Act of the early 1960s. Opening 38 years ago and situated on M-72 just past the intersection with M-22, the facility offers medical and dental care for men, women and children during the harvest season from June to October.
For more information on the Northwest Michigan Health Services Migrant Health Service, see their web site at www.nmhsi.org.