This May, El Futuro is launching its annual May Mental Health Awareness Campaign! This May Mental Health we will be working towards raising $100,000 to sustain El Futuro’s clinics as well as spread awareness on the realities that our immigrant neighbors and friends face. El Futuro is a mental health agency, and we believe it is important to advocate for the rights and voices of clients and community members. As North Carolina’s Latino immigrant community continues to grow, so does the need for mental health services.
In 2004, El Futuro started as a volunteer effort and to this day, we rely on volunteer Mental Health Ambassadors to help us spread El Futuro’s mission with friends, family, networks, and all those who are interested in supporting and increasing mental health access to Latino families in North Carolina. Mental Health Ambassadors are essential to El Futuro’s work as a nonprofit mental health clinic, and we are grateful to those dedicated to decreasing mental health disparities.
This May Mental Health month we will need the help of Mental Health Ambassadors more than ever! We are excited to share a May Mental Health Ambassador Toolkit to prepare Ambassadors with knowledge on El Futuro and commit to sharing El Futuro’s campaign throughout the month of May with your friends, families, neighbors, colleagues, employers, places of worship, and beyond. Additionally, Ambassadors can enjoy benefits that include:
- Increasing access to mental health services for Latino community
- Receive recognition at El Futuro events
- Receive self-care package full of goodies from one of our local partner’s, Burts Bee
- Enter a raffle for a luxury massage from Auroraflow
- Join with other Ambassadors and the Executive leadership of El Futuro for a Mental Health Month Launch zoom call.
You can be part of a movement to inform, empower, and inspire our community – and have all of the tools to do so!
If you are interested in increasing access to mental health for Latino families and Immigrants in North Carolina as a Mental Health Ambassador, please fill out the form here to be contacted:
Alvely Alcántara, LCSW
Rossy C. Garcia, MEd 
Katy Sims, MD 
Everardo Aviles, LCSW, LCAS (Eve)
As a medical anthropologist and social work researcher, Dr. Gulbas’ research embodies interdisciplinarity through the integration of applied theories of health and human development with qualitative and ethnographic methodologies. Her work seeks to understand how people—children, families, and providers—navigate complex sociocultural landscapes in the pursuit of mental health. Most of her work, to date, focuses attention on developing more robust interpretations of suicide risk. With funding from the National Institutes of Mental Health, this body of research has contributed to advancements in theoretical and empirical knowledge of the broader contexts within which youth suicide risk is situated. 
R. Gabriela Barajas-Gonzalez is a developmental psychologist and an assistant professor of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Dr. Barajas-Gonzalez is the principal investigator of a study that examines the impact of immigration-related threat and stress on school communities. She earned a PhD in developmental psychology from Columbia University and hold a BA in human biology from Stanford University. Dr. Barajas-Gonzalez is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and a first gen college student.
Dr. Parra-Cardona is an Associate Professor in the Steve Hicks School of Social Work (SHSSW) at the University of Texas at Austin. At the SHSSW, he serves as Coordinator for Mexico and Latin American initiatives. He also serves as Area Director for Research at the UT Austin Latino Research Institute. Dr. Parra-Cardona’s program of research is focused on the cultural adaptation of evidence-based parenting interventions for low-income Latinx populations in the US and Latin America.
Bianka Reese, PhD, MSPH is a research scientist and program evaluator specializing in adolescent and young adult sexual and reproductive health. Her previous research in the experiences of Latinx LGBTQ+ youth stems from her work as the Research and Evaluation Manager at SHIFT NC (Sexual Initiatives For Teens), where she led largescale evaluations of multilevel, community-based sexual health promotion initiatives and research projects aimed at elevating the voices of diverse youth in North Carolina. Dr. Reese is currently the Senior Research Strategist at Creative Research Solutions, LLC, an award-winning national evaluation, research, and assessment firm.
Tania Connaughton-Espino, MPH is an independent researcher focused on adolescent and young adult sexual and reproductive health. Her interest in the experiences of Latinx LGBTQ+ youth stems from her previous work with SHIFT NC (Sexual Initiatives For Teens), where she led the training and evaluation department, conducted capacity-building workshops for youth serving professionals including on the topic of how to be more affirming of LGBTQ youth, and from her extensive experience working with the Latinx population in NC.
Maru Gonzalez, EdD is an Assistant Professor and Youth Development Specialist in the Department of Agricultural and Human Sciences at North Carolina State University. Her areas of inquiry include youth development with a focus on activism, social justice, and the experiences of LGBTQ+ young people across familial, school, and community contexts. 
Nayeli Y. Chavez-Dueñas, PhD
Hector Y. Adames, PsyD