Salud Familiar en McKinley: Culture and language concerns and strategies of a unique and sustainable community-university partnership to promote health equity and community resilience

Salud Familiar en McKinley is a public health promotion partnership between a low-income, immigrant elementary school community and the public health program of the local university. Founded in 2007, Salud Familiar began with core values of public health education (start where the people are, participation, praxis), principles of the university department (authentic relationships, collaborative achievement, and that which is not given away is lost), and cultural values of the school and community (family, respect, dignity, humility). Over a period of 5 years, university, school, and community members carefully and purposefully built a partnership that is more than the sum of its parts and now deeply embedded in the hearts and cultures of both organizations. Although the parents are monolingual Spanish speakers and the college students speak English and at least 15 different native languages or dialects, commitment to cultural humility, shared experience, and authentic relationships transformed a language barrier into a cultural and linguistic opportunity. Indeed, rather than tailoring a program to fit the language of one of the partners, we co-created the understandings and commitments that allow us to work and learn across cultural and linguistic divides. This presentation will highlight recurring decisions around language, including choice of words, use of data, framing of issues, and the importance of names. Best practices for working across languages and cultures will be shared from two Salud Familiar components - our annual program of 13 large family health events and leadership development with Las Campeonas de la Salud (mothers health club).