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Partnerships

Culture and Language Coaching Program

Community partnerships


Thanks to conversations between the Culture and Language Coaching Program and Mattie Rhodes Center in Missouri, we were able to transfer the coaching model from our clinic in CHiCoS to providers serving the community in social work service coordination and behavioral health care. We were able to do so through a grant from Reach Healthcare Foundation.

With grants from Reach, Health Forward Foundation, Cigna Foundation, and support from Children's Mercy, culture and language coaches are supporting bilinguals at Mattie Rhodes Center, PACES from the Wyandotte Behavioral Health Network, Children’s Mercy Social Work and Development & Behavior/ADHD providers at Broadway, and Promise 1000 Turner PAT (Parents as Teachers) in the community.

These grants allowed us to partner with Language Line Solutions to create a Behavioral and Service Coordination (Social Work) Language Proficiency specifically designed to qualify these providers to work with patients in Spanish. This test, along with others we hope to develop in the future, will allow our program to professionalize Spanish in behavioral care. Testing can also be a powerful tool for bilingual staff recruitment among our partners in the community.

Current partnerships include:

Academic partnerships


In 2020, Culture and Language Coaching Program leaders joined the National Association of Medical Spanish and now lead the Graduate Medical Education Working Subgroup of the MST. The GME Subgroup seeks to create and implement standardized training and testing in the graduate medical education setting (residencies and fellowships), where opportunities for practical experience increase as time for language study decreases.

Visit the Medical Spanish Taskforce to learn more.

Throughout the development of CHiCoS and the Culture and Language Coaching Program, we have consulted with other educational institutions interested in developing similar training models, including the University of Kansas School of Medicine (Kansas City, KS); Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN); Waco Family Medicine Residency (Waco, TX); Baylor Scott & White/Mclane’s Children’s Hospital (Temple, TX); and Primary Children’s Hospital (Salt Lake City, UT).

Funding partnerships


The success of the Culture and Language Coaching Program has depended on partnering with funders who share our vision for a more equitable future. They include:

Advisory board members

Michelle Bertuglia-Haley, MSW, LCSW, LSCSW
Clinical Supervisor Child and Family Therapy Team
Children's Mercy, Department of Social Work

Michele Kilo, MD
Developmental Pediatrician
Behavioral Health Consultant, FosterAdopt Connect
Certified Physician Development Coach
Heart of the Phoenix, Coaching and Consulting
Specializing in coaching for physicians and health care professionals

Andrea Perdomo-Morales, MSW, LSCSW, LCSW
Chief Program Officer
Vibrant Health - Wyandotte Neighborhood Clinics

Mariana Ramírez, LMSW
Director, JUNTOS Center for Advancing Latino Health

Teresa Strub, MS, LPC
Children’s Services Program Director
Swope Health Services