El Centro De Servicios Sociales Inc

231GO Collaborative : The program is offered to Lorain youth grades 5-8 who reside in Census Tract 231. The collaborative focuses on and assists youth to create the necessary developmental assets, Social Self Efficacy, Academic Self Efficacy and Valued by Adults. El Centro is the backbone agency of the collaborative, with partner agencies and collaborative partners focused on mentoring, self esteem development and creating students who are motivated and engaged in learning.

El Dorado Senior Center. The program is designed to enhance the quality of life of Latino senior citizens through culturally sensitive supportive services, which include: health screenings, health education, interpretation, translation the services necessary to improve their mental and physical health. El Dorado Senior Program serves Latino seniors whom are challenged by socioeconomic, language, and cultural barriers. Of the clients served in the program, 80% live below the poverty level and 82% do not speak English. Over one third of the clients are disabled and frail. Many of the clients served by the program have little or no family members available to assist them with their physicaland emotional needs and over half live alone. Often times, El Dorado caseworkers are the only point of contact the elderly have for assistance. El Centro caseworkers are trained to interpret in the context of health service delivery and provide bi-cultural supportive services, which are essential part of a more accurate diagnosis and more sensitive treatment to ensure quality of care for over 110 seniors.

Community Health and Supportive Services Program: The Community Health and Supportive Services program formally know as Adult Support Services is a unique program that serves as the first stop for many monolingual Latino families in need of social services and those having difficulty navigating the social services system. The program is also considered the signature program of El Centro. This program has established excellent partnerships with many organizations, health institutions, social services agencies and programs, school systems, law offices, and others. This program is currently serving a dual role while providing a crucial service to the community, as it also serves to cultivate and develop bilingual social workers in our county and address a need in our county, state and nation. The goal of this program is to continue providing social assessments to family in need, identifying services needed, but most important, connecting families to those services by providing referrals as well as interpretation and support. Ancillary Services provided by the program include a mobile food pantry in collaboration with Second Harvest Food Bank of Northeast Ohio.

Community Development: The Community Development Program is Collaboration between the members of the Lorain Latino Finance and Housing Committee to provide bilingual financial literacy education to residents in Lorain County and once agency has received a HUD certification add home buying classes. The Lorain Latino Financial and Housing Committee consists of financial institutions that are committed to helping the community to learn about financial management, home buying process and financial stability.