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Knowledge And Use Of Social Services In Gervais, Oregon, Elizabeth Lewis, Abby Maier, Lajuana J. Morton

Dissertations and Theses

During first year field placement, we worked with a number of rural families, most of them Mexican-American. It seemed to us that rural families in general and Mexican-Americans in particular were not being very well served by social service agencies. We questioned whether this might be due to a lack of Mexican-American perspective in traditional services or perhaps a lack of Mexican-American manpower or at least Spanish-speaking manpower.

This study, then, developed out of a general area of interest that can be stated as three questions: (1) Do rural people (especially Mexican-Americans) feel there is a need for various social …