Outreach to farmworkers before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Summary

Outreach is an important element of social care. It is an informal but planned form of on-site service delivery to vulnerable populations. Outreach affects some target populations, such as migrant farmworkers, immensely. Outreach staff demonstrate a unique capacity to navigate remote and hard to -to-reach areas, making contact with farmworkers who would otherwise not receive essential services. This ethnographic study describes how organizations make first contact with farmworkers in normal times, and the changes to outreach observed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Findings

Outreach workers connect, interact, and provide services to farmworkers in unique settings and situations. The general components of farmworker outreach are planning, engaging, improvising, and initiating services. During the pandemic, the changes observed were a sense of urgency to serve farmworkers, and adaptations in the modality of outreach to include a focus on health, collaboration with health clinicians, and the use of social media to contact farmworkers.

Applications

Outreach matters to farmworkers and other groups that are secluded, isolated, and vulnerable to abuse. In crisis times, such as the pandemic, outreach is even more vital. Hence, outreach, including the skills required t o conduct outreach, should form part of social work curriculum. Different models and outreach components should be evaluated to assess whether organizations providing outreach services to target populations deliver results beyond immediate benefits and contribute to structural change and advocacy on behalf of them.