Health equity is thriving through Paso a Paso, a Community Health Investment program of Providence St. Joseph Hospital and Providence Redwood Memorial Hospital in Humboldt County. The bilingual and bicultural Paso a Paso team provides cultural and linguistically appropriate perinatal care to the Latinx community. Such services include childbirth education; breast feeding support; infant massage classes; parenting classes; home, phone or virtual visits; individual counseling and psychotherapy; resource referrals; and support groups.
Through extensive educational opportunities offered by Paso a Paso, Latinx parents are empowered to build personalized parenting plans while being treated with compassion, dignity, and respect.
When COVID-19 presented challenges to resource accessibility, the Paso a Paso team mobilized their typical in-person efforts, enabling clients to safely continue perinatal care from the comfort of their home. It’s been critical to the Paso a Paso team to understand what the unmet needs are for their clients, and to supply diapers, culturally appropriate foods, masks and hand sanitizer through resource fairs and home drop-offs.
Most often, families lean on Paso a Paso during the perinatal period, but additional services (all free) are offered to support growing Latinx families:
- Perinatal Support Services
- Community Outreach and Engagement, Wellness and Prevention
- Application Assistance and Healthcare Navigation
- Social Work
- Psychotherapy
- Connection to Community Resources and Referrals
COVID-19 has also created a strain on students’ abilities to connect with their educational materials and maintain a vibrant social life.
When lead community health worker with Paso a Paso, Jessica Eusebio-Larios, discovered a sixth-grade student’s grades were significantly declining, she researched the cause and found that the student never received a school-assigned Chromebook and was attempting to complete homework on her family’s one cell phone. Eusebio-Larios was able to bridge the language barrier for the student’s parents who are not fluent in English and request a Chromebook from the Humboldt County Office. This seemingly small action had a lasting impact on the student’s educational future.
Paso a Paso’s in-person classes have transitioned to virtual classes due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Eusebio-Larios leads an evidence-based curriculum that promotes nurturing touch and understanding infant cues to increase connection between parents and babies.
During one class, Eusebio-Larios noticed a struggling mother— “I could hear it in her voice, because we speak the same language and share culture, we have a real connection. I had known this mom for many years and had taught her childbirth education classes.”
Eusebio-Larios was able to refer this mother to a psychotherapist with Paso a Paso, who provides counseling services to uninsured community members. The mother was able to easily gain support for anxiety and depression through virtual therapy visits.
Paso a Paso continues to ease the perinatal experience for Latinx parents and serve as a reminder that the community will persevere through teamwork.
