Resolution urging the Mayor, the Board of Supervisors and the Department of Human Services to maintain existing funding levels for the Asian Pacific Islander Family Hotline and to retain the hotline as a separate and distinct service.
WHEREAS, The provision of culturally and linguistically appropriate services is an essential requirement for counseling service providers to offer effective assistance to diverse immigrant populations; and
WHEREAS, The Asian Pacific Islanders (API) Family Hotline is the first and only parental stress hotline in California serving six Asian and Pacific Islander communities in seven API languages, including Cantonese, Mandarin, Tagalog, Laotian, Cambodian, Vietnamese and Samoan; and,
WHEREAS, The API Family Hotline provides services that include linguistically and culturally appropriate telephone counseling service, information and referral services linking immigrant families to community resources; and,
WHEREAS, The API Family Hotline educates other agencies and services providers about cultural and linguistic problems in working with API families; and,
WHEREAS, The API Family Hotline staff are familiar with how culture influences parenting style, family relations and cultural barriers that API families might need to overcome in order to seek services; and,
WHEREAS, Thousands of San Francisco families have been served since 1996 and 748 families were served in 2001 exceeding its contract goal of 300 by nearly 250%; and,
WHEREAS, The current funding of $79,034 annually to the API is not enough to provide hotline service in six (6) Asian languages; and,
WHEREAS, The Department of Human Services is proposing a sixty percent (60%) budget cut for the API Family Hotline and consolidation of the hotline with the TalkLine, a parental hotline serving English and Spanish speaking families; and,
WHEREAS, The consolidation of the API Family Hotline and the TalkLine will compromise the cultural competency needed to provide effective assistance to Asian and Pacific Islander immigrant families; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the Immigrant Rights Commission strongly urge the Department of Human Services to preserve the API Family Hotline as a separate and distinct service for Asian and Pacific Islander families; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Immigrant Right Commission urges the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors not to cut the API Family Hotline budget by sixty percent (60%).
