El Futuro’s Sabrina Aguilar-Simon almost decided against majoring in Spanish, her passion, while attending college in Ohio. She thought it wouldn’t be “practical.”
“I thought that all you could really do with it was either teach or do research,” she said, “and I wasn’t really interested in either of those things.”
Yet, as it turned out, it couldn’t have been more practical: majoring in Spanish ultimately led her to an entire career dedicated to what she called “social work-y work” with the Triangle area’s Latino communities “without really being a social worker.”
For over a decade, Aguilar-Simon has worked to connect Spanish-speaking families with the resources they need primarily in Orange county. Now, she’s just expanded her reach: she’s El Futuro’s newest clinical project manager — and the first to head the bilingual mental health clinic’s outreach in Chatham.
“We’ve been there at Chatham for many years providing services, but this is sort of a new effort to try to expand the reach of our services in Chatham and Orange,” she said, adding that she will be “doing some collaborative planning with others at El Futuro to plan how to spread the word that we can serve folks in Orange County and Chatham County even during the pandemic through our telehealth services.”
According to Kerry Brock, El Futuro’s director of advancement and strategy, Aguilar-Simon will also be working to monitor trends in requests for services from Chatham Latino families, “improve screening processes” to help families access services better and engage with partner organizations who also serve county Latino families. She’s still learning, but Aguilar-Simon said she plans to reach out to organizations like the Hispanic Liaison, Communities In Schools and Chatham-based health centers.
“Sabrina is perfect for this job because she is a Spanish-speaker, has lived in Latin America and can identify with the families we serve,” Brock told the News + Record. “She also has significant experience providing effective outreach and engagement with Latino families through other nonprofit programs, and ensuring service trends and goals are met so that more Spanish-speaking families connect with helpful resources in the community.”
*Article made by Chatham News
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