The CACTI Blog: Bridging the Gap in Refugee Disability Services

By Dora Le, 2025-2026 Diversity Fellow

Growing up as the child of Vietnamese refugees, I learned early that getting health care can be hard. It can depend on how well you understand the system. When my dad was in a car crash and was paralyzed, my family spent hours translating forms and trying to get him the care he needed. This experience changed how I see health care.

Later, I worked as a nursing assistant and started studying public health at the University of Arizona. I realized that my family’s struggle was not unusual. Many people have a hard time with the health care system. It can be worse for people who are already facing challenges.

This led me to join the Sonoran Center for Excellence in Disabilities as a Diversity Fellow. I wanted to learn more about the problems faced by people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. I also wanted to find ways to make services easier to access.

For my project, I worked with Encircle Families and the International Rescue Committee in Tucson. We focused on better understanding the challenges refugees with disabilities face when trying to access services and support systems. These families face language and cultural barriers as soon as they arrive in the United States. They also have to deal with complicated programs. This makes it easy for them to get lost in the process.

To better understand these gaps, we worked closely with refugee families, caseworkers, and disability service providers to learn where families experience the most challenges and what kinds of supports may help. One outcome of this work was a better understanding of the steps families take to access services, from determining eligibility to applying for and receiving support.

We also held training sessions for caseworkers who help these families. Bringing disability service providers and refugee support workers together made a big difference. They worked as a team to understand how the programs connect and where problems happen. After the training, staff felt more confident helping families and solving problems.

Even with better training, one big issue remained: language. Staff said it is still hard to find services in different languages and to use interpreters correctly. This reminded me of the language problems my own dad faced. It showed us what we need to focus on next.

Overall, this project helped me understand the challenges that caseworkers face. It also showed me how important teamwork is between different organizations. As I work toward becoming a doctor, this experience strengthened my beliefs about fairness in healthcare. Being a good provider is not just about giving respectful care. It also means understanding the system and helping patients use it successfully.

The CACTI Blog features the voices of our interdisciplinary trainees and Community Advisory Council members as they highlight diverse images of people with disabilities and provide community information and advocacy on disability issues. Check Out The CACTI Blog