Seven social work graduate students received Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships recently. Six of the seven FLAS fellows received their award for the 2020-21 academic year. They are::
- Meagan Bernatchez (MSW, ‘22), FLAS in Portuguese
- Gabriella Chamberland (MSW/MAAIS, ’22), FLAS in Turkish
- Linh Huynh, (MSW, ‘21), FLAS in Vietnamese
- Ly Huynh (MSW, ‘21), FLAS in Vietnamese
- Evalynn Fae Romano (MSW, ‘21), FLAS in Filipino/Tagalog
- Anonymous, FLAS in Persian
In addition, Seth Kramer (MA/MS, ‘21) received a FLAS in Arabic this past summer.
The fellowship program, administered by the UW’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, enables students to use enhanced language and cultural skills as a way to connect with communities, improving the delivery of social work services. Here are what a few of the award recipients said about improving their language skills and creating social change.
Meagan Bernatchez, for example, will focus on learning Portuguese. "With the support of the FLAS award, I hope to integrate Portuguese language into my future clinical practice,” she said. “Working with Spanish-speaking populations in the past taught me the importance of delivering linguistically appropriate services, especially to navigate the complexities of our mental health, education and human service systems. I also see language as a beautiful link to building relationships on an equal footing and as a way to explore another person’s way of thinking and being.”
Gabriella Chamberland will study Turkish. "I plan to integrate Turkish fluency into my social work career because I want to focus on the refugee and Immigrant context, particularly within Turkey as they host the largest number of refugees in the world. My career goal is to work for a UN agency or a [similar] international nongovernmental organization and bring a social work perspective to the field of humanitarian response and international development."
Ly Huynh plans to study Vietnamese, focusing on medical terminology. “Talking about and receiving care for mental health is highly stigmatized in the Vietnamese community which equates having mental health issues as being either weak or crazy. At the same time, high rates of anxiety, depression and trauma are present in the community, thanks to that nation’s history of war, resettlement and acculturation. By learning Vietnamese, I can provide a stronger therapeutic relationship with clients. I also want to develop a mental health vocabulary to destigmatize mental health care, and plan to work with the Vietnamese Health Board to develop a community mental health toolkit.”
Evalynn Fae Romano, studying to become a mental health clinician for Asian and Pacific Islander communities, notes that “Tagalog language skills will be a powerful and meaningful connection while serving Filipina/x/o clients in a therapeutic setting.”
Over the past four years, nearly $7.5 million in FLAS grants were awarded to scores of students in 24 schools and departments across the UW and earmarked for the study of 27 languages. In addition, the University of Washington is the only institution in the nation to award FLAS fellowships in Indigenous languages.