Windows of Opportunity
Lydia Gil-Hartman, LM, The Prairie Area Health Education Center
Presented at the Dallas Conference
Because Texas is already a minority state, there is a critical shortage of bilingual professionals in the workforce, particularly the healthcare workforce. North Central Texas College in Gainesville, NCTC, in collaboration with Prairie AHEC, has taken a big step to combat this issue. They were awarded the WINDOWS grant: Workforce Initiatives Meeting the Nursing Demand with Winning Solutions to address the high demand shortage of skilled and qualified workers. In addition the project focuses on recruiting, preparing, and training Hispanics to enter healthcare fields and provide career ladder options for advancement. The overall goal of WINDOWS is to develop and implement a seamless transition model to move individuals from K-12 to the community college, to the university and into workforce with multi entry and exit points.
The objectives will be achieved by explaining the population shift in Texas and the numbers of bilingual healthcare workers currently working in the state. The presenter will address the importance of language and cultural competency in the workforce and explain what the WINDOWS grant entails and how Prairie AHEC and NCTC can address this shortage.