bilingual groups

My former site (I am retired now), Casa de Amigos, in Houston,TX does bilingual Spanish and English groups.  Also, several other sites at Harris Health do the same.
At our site, all the midwives spoke pretty good OB Spanish, but not enough to be able to facilitate a group.  Mostly, we never had enough women to have separate English and Spanish due date groups.  Once when we were doing two due date groups a month, one at 8:30a and one at 11;30 a, we thought about putting all the English/bilingual speakers in one group and all the Spanish speakers in the other group.  But the women didn't want to do this.  They preferred having the choice of the two times rather than having the same language

Either way the provider (CNMs in our case) would need a staff facilitator to translate in the group.  Mostly we had a mixture of participants that were bilingual, those that spoke only Spanish and occasionally only those who spoke English.  The English-only speakers were always welcomed and accepted in the groups and the participants that were bilingual would befriend these participants.  And of course, both the staff facilitator and I would make sure that they were included and that translation happened. 
All I can say it worked for my 12 years I was doing Centering. And is still working.  It was either do it this way or not have Centering.  
TIPs

• The provider should be able to speak enough Spanish to get through most of the assessment. 
• The staff facilitators needed to be bilingual.  
• The provider facilitator needs to say a few sentences at a time, so the staff facilitator can translate.  
• When the women and men would carry on a conversation in the circle, I would not have them translate every word.  But at some point, I would make a "T" with my hands which meant that I needed a summary or the discussion.  I spoke enough Spanish that I could understand a lot of what was being said.  
• Sometimes, I would speak bad Spanish and the staff facilitator would translate into correct Spanish, so it seemed I should just speak English.  But of course, if we had English-only speaking participants, I needed to speak English.  
• Usually it is not possible to cover every topic for every session.  It depends on the discussion and the activities.  
• The staff facilitators deserve a huge amount of credit for making this work.  Their enthusiasm and love of the patients made it work.  All of our staff facilitators were the equivalent of MAs and did all the other work the staff facilitator does--recording vital signs, getting and giving the patient lab, U/S, behavioral health appointments, etc.  They were so essential to making all this work.  Thanks Santa, Blanca, Ana, Diana, Lupe and Gloria!