Abstract:

Native Spanish speakers in the United States are stressing the curriculum, training, and assessment of Assisted Living Facility (ALF) administrators. According to the United States Census Bureau:
1. The Hispanic population increased by 15.2 million between 2000 and 2010 accounting for more than half of the total U.S. population increase of 27.3 million.
2. Between 2000 and 2010, the Hispanic population grew by 43 percent, or four times the nation's 9.7 percent growth rate.
3. Persons of Hispanic or Latino origin make up 22.9% of the population in Florida.
4. Hispanics are the majority in Miami-Dade County, Florida.
An ALF, as defined in Florida Statute 429.02, is any building or buildings, section or distinct part of a building, private home, boarding home, home for the aged or other residential facility, whether operated for profit or not, which undertakes through its ownership or management to provide housing, meals and one or more personal services for a period exceeding 24 hours to one or more adults who are not relatives of the owner or administrator. An administrator means an individual at least 21 years of age who is responsible for the operation and maintenance of an ALF.
The State of Florida requires ALF administrators to successfully complete: 1) a prescribed core training course; and 2) a core competency assessment. To meet the demand of Spanish speakers participating in the ALF training and assessment, it is essential that ALF trainers provide this population with access to appropriate instructional and curriculum resources that are linguistically and culturally sensitive.
The University of South Florida (USF), in collaboration with the Florida Department of Elder Affairs (DoEA) and the Florida Department of Education (DOE), is in the early phases of designing a bilingual, innovative, and comprehensive curriculum for ALF trainers and students. The curriculum will employ a holistic framework encompassing: 1) Florida statues; 2) standards; 3) core competencies; 4) measureable benchmarks; and 5) assessments.
To accomplish these goals, the University of South Florida is conducting a mixed-methods research study (Tashakeri & Teddue, 2003) in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States to investigate the following primary questions:
1. In what ways can the Spanish version of the ALF curriculum be more culturally and linguistically appropriate?
2. In what ways can the Spanish version of the ALF assessment be more culturally and linguistically appropriate?
3. In what ways can the ALF program increase the recruitment of Spanish speakers?
4. In what ways can ALF trainers be more culturally and linguistically responsive to the needs of Spanish speaking students?
Researchers will collect data in January and February of 2012 using observations, questionnaires, field-notes, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups (Creswell, 2012). Data will be analyzed through constant comparative analysis (Merriam, 2009). Key factors impacting training and assessment for ALF administrators will be identified and viable strategies to improve Spanish-speaking participation in ALF administration will be recommended. This study will codify and classify (Friese, 2012) cultural and linguistic barriers Spanish speakers face when attempting to become ALF administrators. Remediation of these barriers will be considered and recommendations will be offered.

Keywords:

Curriculum, bilingual, innovation.