Profile: The Dallas Concilio of Hispanic Service Organizations

The Dallas Concilio is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization that has served the Greater Dallas area since 1981. Our mission is to advocate and enhance the quality of life for Hispanics through community partnerships. Our organization was created to address the lack of culturally and linguistically effective programs for Hispanics by traditionally non-Hispanic service providers. The issue continues to be relevant today as the Hispanic population, now the majority population in Dallas County, continues to grow, and providers cannot keep up with the demand for services that must be implemented through cultural understanding. We assist a network of organizations (our affiliates) by providing them with specific tools to build their capacity to effectively serve their Hispanic clients. We are a solutions provider, bridging the gap between the Hispanic community and the community at large.

During our first decade, we recognized that a natural development of our mission was to create and implement programs in response to the gaps in services as voiced by the providers we assisted. These programs include parent involvement classes and community health services.

An issue for the local Hispanic community in the early 1990’s was the lack of free education in Spanish regarding diabetes, which disproportionately affects Hispanics. From this need came our Community Health program, which helps Hispanics overcome challenges with regards to health care. Our diabetes initiative had the distinction of being presented in 1998 at the annual conferences of the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Diabetes Translation and again in 2006 at the CDC Annual Diabetes and Obesity Conference. Additionally, our walking program was recognized at the same conference as a success as a physical activity intervention targeting a Texas minority population. Our Community Health program was nationally recognized in July 2007 by the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) with a Family Strengthening Award.

Our Education program, begun in 2002, addresses the high dropout and low college enrollment rates of Hispanics that are often due to their lack of understanding of the education system in the United States. The Concilio’s program helps the entire family understand the importance of education by teaching parents their role, rights and responsibilities as these relate to their children’s academic success. Our program was selected by the United Way for the pilot year of its Destination: Graduation initiative in 2005-06. Destination: Graduation aims to reduce the dropout rate in the Dallas Independent School District (DISD) using a three-pillar approach: parent involvement, mentoring and college preparation. As the sole providers of the parent involvement component, we graduated 182 parents from Samuell High School and were chosen to participate again in the 2006-07 and 2007-08 school years.

In the 1990’s, coalitions with other service providers were begun, and current collaborative projects include a scholarship program with Neiman Marcus and a research project with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, among others.

The Concilio staff includes bilingual and bicultural, degreed professionals experienced in working effectively with the Hispanic community. Our dynamic volunteer board of directors is made up of talented educators, experienced corporate executives, accomplished attorneys and influential Hispanic community leaders who guide the organization. Agency staff and volunteers are recognized throughout the community as experts on Hispanic issues, and we serve more than 7,000 individuals each year through our programs.