Heather joined the El Futuro team in August 2021 as the new Clinic Services Manager. Heather recently relocated from Oakland, CA where she worked as an intern, clinician and supervisor for the past 17 years at La Clinica de la Raza Mental Health Services. Heather’s focus is on access to health resources for Latinx folks. Heather is an avid reader, and when not working spends her time following her three kids around to their various activities.
Alvely Alcántara, LCSW is a first generation Dominican immigrant raised in New York City. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in the state of North Carolina with eight years experience providing mental health therapy to the Latinx/Hispanic community, specializing in the treatment of anxiety, trauma, and family dynamics. Alvely utilizes a holistic, somatic based approach to treating mental health, focusing on what each client needs. Alvely is the founder of the Latinx Healing Collective, composed of ten local Latinx therapists providing mental health treatment to the Latinx community. She is also the founder/co-host of a podcast for Latinx/Hispanic listeners in which topics are discussed to deconstruct the stigma of mental and emotional wellness. As a therapist, she believes that one of the most important things she can do for her clients is to teach individuals to identify and change unhealthy thought patterns and develop self-compassion and self-awareness. Alvely is the owner of a private practice, Rooted Healing Therapy, PLLC located in Raleigh-Durham, N.C.
Rossy C. Garcia, MEd is a school counselor in the Wake County Public School System. Prior to becoming a school counselor in 2015, she spent 15 years in the Biotech and Environmental industries. She is an active member of the NC School Counselor Association where she’s served as part of the Delegate Assembly and NBCC committee. As a first generation college student she is passionate about helping Latinx students access post-secondary education while maintaining emotional and mental health.
Katy Sims, MD attended Davidson College for her undergraduate degree and is now a fourth year Psychiatry resident at UNC School of Medicine. Katy’s dedication to psychiatry comes out of her realization that whole-body health often has to start with sound behavioral health — you can’t work on someone’s diabetes if they’re too depressed to make lifestyle changes. She especially likes working with Spanish-speaking populations because of how much being able to deliver treatments in their native language means to these clients.
Everardo Aviles, LCSW, LCAS (Eve) is a Child and Family Therapist in Winston Salem NC. He lives in Ruffin NC with his wife and their four children. He immigrated to NC from Mexico at the age of nine. His work focuses on providing trauma informed treatment, as well as treatment for sexually reactive behaviors; to clients 5-17 years of age.
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 received her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the APA accredited program at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. She is a Professor at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology (TCSPP) where she serves as the faculty coordinator for the concentration in Latinx Mental Health in the Counseling Psychology Department. She is the Co-Director of the IC-RACE Lab (Immigration Critical Race and Cultural Equity Lab). She has co-authored two books: (a) Cultural Foundations and Interventions in Latinx Mental Health: History, Theory and within Group Differences (with Hector Y. Adames) published by Routledge Press and (c) Ethics in Psychotherapy and Counseling: A Practical Guide, 6th Ed. (with Kenneth S. Pope, Melba J.T. Vasquez, Hector Y. Adames) published by Wiley. Her research focuses on colorism, skin-color differences, parenting styles, immigration, unaccompanied minors, multiculturalism, and race relations. She has earned a number of awards including the 2018 American Psychological Association (APA) Distinguished Citizen Psychologist Award. To learn more, please visit Dr. Chavez-Dueñas’ lab at www.icrace.org
Hector Y. Adames, PsyD received his doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the APA accredited program at Wright State University in Ohio and completed his APA pre-doctoral internship at the Boston University School of Medicine’s Center for Multicultural Training in Psychology (CMTP). Currently, he is a licensed psychologist and a Professor at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, Chicago Campus and the Co-Director of the IC-RACE Lab (Immigration Critical Race and Cultural Equity Lab). Dr. Adames has co-authored or co-edited several books including (a) Cultural Foundations and Interventions in Latinx Mental Health: History, Theory and within Group Differences (with Nayeli Y. Chavez-Dueñas) published by Routledge Press, (b) Caring for Latinxs with Dementia in a Globalized World published by Springer, (c) Ethics in Psychotherapy and Counseling: A Practical Guide, 6th Ed. (with Kenneth S. Pope, Melba J.T. Vasquez, Nayeli Y. Chavez-Dueñas) published by Wiley, and (d) Succeeding as a Therapist: How to Create a Thriving Practice in a Changing World (with Nayeli Y. Chavez-Dueñas, Melba J.T. Vasquez, Kenneth S. Pope) published by the American Psychological Association (APA). He has earned several awards including the 2018 Distinguished Emerging Professional Research Award from The Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity, and Race, a Division of APA. To learn more, please visit Dr. Adames’ lab at www.icrace.org