Cultural Competency

Pilsen Wellness Center values the uniqueness of the bicultural person.  This translates into supportive programs that appreciate how language and culture influence therapeutic strategies.  This in-depth understanding facilitates a process of healing for participants by taking into consideration how levels of acculturation and the immigrant experience impact treatment services.  Common among many Latinos, the immigrant experience is one of the most stressful events a family can undergo.  The Center’s staff helps families address acculturation, behavioral, emotional, and adjustment problem issues.

Pilsen Wellness Center (PWC) employs a 70 percent bilingual and bicultural staff.  PWC’s expertise rests on the ability to grasp the significance of acculturation and how life experiences are encoded in language.  Facilitating the participant’s access to the effective or “emotional” aspect of a problem through the language in which it was experienced is a fundamental treatment component. Language and its subtleties, strongly related to identity, and expertise in treating acculturation difficulties are a hallmark of services provision.

PWC’s professionally-trained staff recognizes that the overall needs and dynamics of the family are integral to successful problem resolutions.  Strong organizational and administrative linkages between and among the Center’s various programs ensure consistency, inter agency cooperation, and optimal interventions.

As an agency with deep roots in the community, the philosophic approach to general service delivery considers the traditions, values and culture of all program participants.  The organization provides social services that are holistic, family focused, and tailored to the needs of participants.