Field Placement: Bienestar Human Services
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Preceptor: Rocio Yong, Evaluations Director
Student Name: Ava Cato
Year: 2003

Bienestar Human Services is a not-for-profit community-based organization that originated as a grass-roots agency. The agency was created as a community response to the lack of HIV/AIDS education and social services available to the Latina/o community. Bienestar is now a multifaceted organization that services many needs of the community. The social services that Bienestar offers typically fall under HIV/AIDS prevention or treatment divisions. Some of the services include a food bank, mental health services, prevention support groups for people who are at risk, and harm reduction education. Their intervention programs successfully incorporate the Stages of Change theoretical model to promote behavior change.

Bienestar offered the evaluation internship position for the first time this summer.
The position was created by the evaluations director at Bienestar, Rocio Yong, who wanted to utilize MPH students to develop fresh, innovative approaches for evaluation projects at the agency.

The main duty of the position entails developing evaluation tools to collect and analyze client feedback for the agency. Though the agency is not a government entity, most of the services that Bienestar offers are funded by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Office of AIDS Prevention and Planning (OAPP). As part of the contract agreement with these entities, Bienestar conducts client satisfaction surveys of their services. The surveys are conducted by the evaluation department of Bienestar. The intern reviews best practices to survey hard-to-reach clientele and makes recommendations for the best mode to conduct an agency-wide client satisfaction survey. The intern collaborates with program staff to develop questionnaires that assess the quality and effectiveness of their respective support groups or workshops as part of the agency survey. Finally, the intern summarizes and analyzes the results from the survey which s/he will present to program staff and the senior management of Bienestar with recommendations to improve client services, support groups and workshops. During this internship, the intern is expected to shadow outreaches, support groups, and social services done by the agency in order to fully understand the work that Bienestar performs. In addition, Bienestar will allow the intern to see first-hand their collaborative efforts with other agencies in the community.

The internship duties takes place at five of the six Bienestar center locations around Los Angeles, and often requires travel to multiple centers in one day. For this reason, personal means of transportation is required. Forty hours a week is expected, however, some flexibility is granted.

By the conclusion of the internship, the student will have a strong understanding of CBO operations, gain valuable evaluation experience, and observe successful examples of the Stages of Change theory in practice.

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