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Multi-systemic consultation with Latino students.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Consultation services have shown to produce positive outcomes for students. Unfortunately, current consultation models and research do not address the specific needs of Latino students. This paper proposes that in order for consultation models to improve outcomes for Latino students, they must emphasize three areas. These areas are: (a) using a multi-systemic approach to consultation; (b) actively involving parents, and (c) considering and incorporating cultural and language factors in the process and content of consultation.

Introduction

Latino children, including limited English proficient (LEP) students, compose a significant percentage of the overall public school population (Carrasquillo, 1999). It has been estimated that by 2010, over half of the students in Texas, California and Florida will be non-Euro-American (Hodkginson & Outtz, 1992) and Latino youth will soon outnumber African American youth, making Latino youth the largest minority group in the United States (Carrasquillo, 1999). Yet, despite legislation (i.e., Lau vs. Nichols, Diana vs. Board of Education) to provide for the specific needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students with adequate services in the schools, the field of education does not appear to fully understand or incorporate best practices in systematically serving Latino students. Hence, it is not surprising that Latinos, including Latino children, are "one of the largest yet least effectively served ethnic populations in the United States" (McNeill, Prieto, Niemann, Pizarro, Vera, & Gomez, 2001, p. 6).

While there is some literature describing the specific needs of the Latino student population, only a few articles address consultation issues with Latino students and families. Cultural factors (i.e., familismo, machismo, etc.) within the Latino culture have been delineated in regards to how they may affect academic achievement and adjustment (La Roche & Shriberg, 2004) and how one may use these cultural factors when collaborating with Latino families (Correa & Tulbert, 1993; Osterling, 2001). More specific suggestions regarding how to work with the Latino student population using consultation have been offered by other researchers. Lopez (2000) describes the use of interpreters in consultation and Tarver-Behring, Cabello, Kushida, and Murguia (2000) describe through case studies cultural modifications in consultation with Latino students and families. Ingraham (2000) developed a framework from which to approach consultation cases with a multicultural focus. While these are important contributions to how consultants can work with Latino students and families using a consultation process, a systematic approach to meeting the specific needs of the Latino student population, is lacking (Ingraham, 2000).

While it is beyond the scope of this paper to fully describe a systematic consultation approach to working with Latino students and families, this paper proposes that current models of consultation do not fully address the specific...

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