La Alianza Hispana Case Study

Five year old Ernesto Lara would lie painfully for weeks on a mattress soaked in blood and urine as his wounds would go untreated while fragmented child protection services scurried about. Little Ernesto and his siblings would have to wait until eventually the grave situation would be noticed by neighbors, meanwhile child protective services inundated by a growing case load would miss opportunities to intervene. Twenty-six year old Clarabel Ventura, single mother of six children, was one of 13 growing up, and like most of her siblings relied on assistance from the government and others to look after her and her children. “Dysfunctional caretakers create negative role models, teaching us to accept and follow their examples,” Lipman-Blumen (2006, p. 34). …show more content…
During the years prior to DSS, contracted charitable organizations were criticized for having inflated views of their own abilities, being culturally mismatched, and for having conflicting views of child protective work (Varley, 1994). On the other hand, DSS recognized the potential role of organizations that could speak the language of the clients and where culturally in tune with them. As a result, the relationship between La Alianza Hispana and DSS was formed. Under the leadership of Commissioner, Marie “Sandy” Matava, DSS secured a reluctant a local organization, La Alianza Hispana to shoulder the responsibility of culturally and linguistically diverse clients that DSS struggled to represent. Varley (1994) cites that, contrary to the previous charitable organizations, leadership and staff of La Alianza Hispana were not confident they were able to meet the challenge or that they were the most appropriate choice. The Partnership Agency Services (PAS) initiative would later reform the initial plan in hope to provide more support to contracted organizations such as La Alianza Hispana. However, the PAS proved to add more to the case load and could not fulfill its