Healthcare access brokerage by school employees for Immigrant Mexican and Indigenous Guatemalan farmworking families in a Connecticut elementary school

It is known that Florida school employees facilitate or broker healthcare access for migrant and farmworking families, but it is not known how states without a Migrant Education Program might also broker healthcare access. The present study examines the role of school employees in brokering healthcare access to immigrant Mexican and Indigenous Guatemalan farmworking families in Connecticut. Informed by prior work, interviews (n=12) with parents and elementary school employees showed that 1) a vast array of non-Migrant Advocate school employees, mostly women, directly brokered physical and psychosocial healthcare access, and 2) barriers to brokerage included language inaccessibility, school employee gaps in knowledge of MSF healthcare needs, and transportation issues. Importantly, the school’s location near MSF homes is an important contributor to the success of the school’s brokerage efforts. Findings offer insight into how a school health broker model might be implemented, and advance understandings of MSF health and healthcare access.