Research and Knowledge Sharing
PCOR Toolkit for Community Behavioral Health Organizations Serving Latinos
Bringing effective behavioral health services to the Latino community is challenging for a number of reasons. As a result, Latino children and adults are much less likely to use mental health services compared to other groups. Unmet mental health needs, in turn, are associated with poor outcomes over the lifespan, both economic and social. This has devastating consequences for our growing Latino community.
An exciting opportunity to help address these challenges is patient-centered research that is outcome driven (PCOR). If you’ve ever been hesitant to participate in research projects because you weren’t sure how your patients would benefit, PCOR might be for you.
Click here to access our practical, community-based Toolkit for building your capacity to participate in research that honors, respects and empowers your patients, preserves the mission of your organization, and furthers the interests of engaged, patient-centered researchers.
Improving Uptake of PCOR Findings at Community Organizations Providing Behavioral Health Services to Latinos in North Carolina.
Over the last two decades, NC has experienced one of the fastest rates of Latino population growth in the nation, resulting in rapidly changing behavioral health needs. Higher rates of trauma and different cultural understandings create an urgent demand for adapted behavioral health approaches. Too often providers face a research-to-practice gap based on several contributing factors: lack of access to up-to-date information in a specific practice field, lack of awareness of patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) or a conceptual framework for uptake of PCOR findings, and lack of capacity to implement new practices based on those PCOR findings.
As a result, El Futuro is working with eight community partner organizations over a period of two years to improve and build uptake capacity of PCOR findings, provide a framework for bridging the research-to-practice gap, and improve mental health outcomes for the Latino community.
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