From Escort Translator to Peer Specialist: How Waldina Palacios Found Her Dream Job
As a peer specialist with VNS Health’s Intensive Mobile Treatment (IMT) team, Waldina Palacios provides help to vulnerable, unhoused New Yorkers who are navigating severe mental health challenges. This means meeting them wherever they may be living—in a shelter, a single-room occupancy residence (SRO), a hospital, or on the streets.
Over more than two decades, Waldina has held many positions at VNS Health, including escort translator, home health aide, and HHA coordinator. During this time, Waldina also experienced VNS Health as a family member – her grandmother was a patient in the Shirley Goodman and Himan Brown Hospice Residence near East 96th Street. (“The place felt like home,” says Waldina. “So cozy and comfortable. Everyone there gave her such good care.”) Waldina’s current role with the Behavioral Health team, she says, is her dream job. It’s also one she didn’t even know existed until recently.
Here, in her own words, is Waldina’s story.
My Translation Skills Brought Me to VNS Health
I started at VNS Health in the 1990s as an escort translator, accompanying care team members into the home to translate for our Spanish-speaking patients and clients. I got training from the organization—I spoke Spanish already, but there’s a lot more to the position, including learning all the medical terminology. It’s so important for the people we serve to learn about their illnesses in their own tongue, so they can understand what is going on with themselves.
When VNS Health’s 1250 Broadway office closed and we moved to 220 East 42nd Street, I took some time off to have my son. When it was time for me to return, VNS Health was offering HHA training, so I took the course. It was free—the only thing we had to buy was books. I started working as an HHA, then I was offered a position as an HHA coordinator. I liked working as a coordinator and as an HHA. We do a lot of good for a lot of people who need our help.
The “Neighborhood Spotlight” Video that Changed My Life
Everything changed so fast when I saw a “Neighborhood Spotlight” video about Behavioral Health’s Pathway Home Program and one of the program’s peer specialists, Kenny Mick. I could really relate to it. The video talked about people’s mental health challenges in the neighborhood where I’ve lived all my life, East Harlem. Once the peer specialist started speaking, I said to myself, “That’s my life he’s describing!” My issues, my health, my experiences. I thought, “Oh my God, I didn’t know VNS Health had a program like this.” So I sent an email telling them how amazing the program sounded, thinking maybe I could do some volunteer work for them.
The very next day—I couldn’t believe it—the Behavioral Health team called me and said, ”We want you to come work with us.” Before I knew it, I was having an interview and got the job.
Harnessing the Power of Lived Experience
I suffer from a mental illness. I take medication for it and have worked with a therapist for years. I’ve been hospitalized in the past, and I can relate to what our Behavioral Health clients are going through. As a peer specialist, I visit my clients at the same hospital I was in, and they reminds me of myself. If I knew back then what I know now—and if I’d had a peer specialist—life would have been much easier.
I recently said to one of my clients, in Spanish, “Listen, I was in your shoes. I went through what you’re going through. If I can do it, you can do it.” He gave me a big smile. He always beams when he sees me. I check in with him often—he’s living on the streets—and when I do, I ask him, “How you doing? Are you hungry? Do you need anything?” I love the fact when a person is down and out, I can come in and help them. It’s even better when I can help them get a room, and get them stabilized.
“You’ve Got to Help Yourself”
I feel in my heart that if I can do it—if I can get out of a psychiatric hospital and live the life I want—anybody else can. I always say you’ve got to push yourself, you’ve got to help yourself. Moments will come when I feel like I can’t do it, but getting up and helping others—it makes me feel good. It’s so emotional to me, when I think of where I used to be and where I am now.
Final Word
VNS Health gives you choices. You want to go to school, they will help you. You want to better yourself, they will help you. I’ve gotten so much training from them, so many opportunities. They’re really there for you, for whatever career you want to make for yourself.
