California
California AgrAbility staff co-hosted the "Virtual Promotores Meeting: Our well-being in COVID-19 times" via Zoom. The effort included various community agencies helping promotores to sign up for emails and become familiar with the Zoom platform. California AgrAbility staff participated with an announcement about program services and the program's current activities to support essential workers. Participants learned about mask use and care, family bubbles, and practicing social distancing at work and at home. The day also included an afternoon session with mental health programming information and an overview of resources to help farm working parents to support their children as they are returning to school virtually. Some daycare spaces will continue to be open for farmworker areas. The webinar was well-received, and a second webinar session was requested by participants and presenters.
Staff participated in the San Fernando Valley Promotores Virtual Conference. This year the conference theme was "Knowing the past to understand the present and where we are headed." The conference featured sessions such as best practices to help working parents with the virtual back-to-school effort, self-care through life, and COVID-19 resources and experiences. The virtual room provided a space for attendees to share their experiences during this pandemic. California AgrAbility staff presented their experience on staying open during the pandemic and how they are working to support essential workers on farms.
California AgrAbility joined the monthly Health Window Providers Meeting with the Health Education Council. AgrAbility staff have been working with this group to promote their COVID19 text information line with AgrAbility Program participants. The text information line provides testing site information for 24 northern California counties. The text information line connects directly to the Health Education Council office where its personnel have been referring farmworkers to AgrAbility for services.
Submitted by Sara Wat