Monthly Webinars
“The Border is Here: Addressing Trauma & Loss Among Immigrant Latin American Families & the Providers Serving Them“
December 13th, 2024 from 12:00-1:30 PM ET
Presented by Carmen Rosa Noroña, MS Ed, LICSW & Ivys Fernández-Pastrana, JD
All of our monthly webinars on Latine mental health are free!
Webinar Description:
Anti-immigration rhetoric ideology and nativism have permeated all corners of political and media discourse in the United States, making the socio-political climate the most hostile towards immigrant communities in modern history. The impact of displacement and the fear and effects of deportation are multifaceted, multi-generational, and detrimental to the health, well-being, and socio-economic stability of immigrant communities regardless of immigration status.
The ripple effect of immigration policies and enforcement on young children in Latin American immigrant families is an urgent challenge for the organizations and providers serving these communities. This presentation will raise awareness about interlocking systems of oppression affecting both immigrant families and their service providers. It will provide an overview of how young children’s well-being is affected by the trauma of family separation, whether threatened or actual, as a result of detention and deportation. It will explore the relationship between providers’ identities and work-related stress, including Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS). The presenters will introduce diversity-informed protective strategies to prevent and mitigate the primary and secondary effects of the work, including diversity-informed reflective practice, Radical Healing approaches, and organizational accountability. Participants will also learn about the “Family Preparedness Plan,” a developmentally- trauma- and diversity-informed tool, to support and empower immigrant families facing separation concerns.
Meet Our December Presenters:
Carmen Rosa Noroña, LICSW, MS. Ed., IECMH-E® is originally from Ecuador. She is the Director of the Center for Excellence in Immigrant Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health and the Boston Site Associate Director of the Early Trauma Treatment Network at Boston Medical Center. She is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine, a Child-Parent Psychotherapy National Trainer, and an expert faculty of the DC: 0-5 Training. She co-developed the Diversity-Informed Tenets Initiative, the BMC Family Preparedness Plan for Immigrant Families and the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) Being Anti-Racist is Central to Trauma-informed Care: Principles of An Anti-Racist, Trauma-Informed Organization. Ms. Noroña’s work has focused on understanding the impact of historical trauma, displacement and colonization in young children in marginalized families and implementing interventions tailored to their unique strengths, needs and socio-cultural-historical, racial ethnic and linguistic contexts. Ms. Noroña is committed to addressing the intersection of systemic inequities and secondary traumatic stress in the workforce via promoting diversity-informed reflective consultation/supervision, skills training, Radical Healing strategies and organizational accountability. At the NCTSN she is a member of the Steering Committee, a core faculty of the Being Anti-Racist is Central to Trauma-Informed Care Initiative, and co-chair of the Latin American Families Collaborative group. She has contributed to the literature in infant mental health, diversity-informed reflective practice and immigration and has culturally validated and translated materials for Spanish-speaking communities.
Ivys Fernández-Pastrana, JD is the Program Manager for the BMC Center of Excellence in Immigrant Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health. In this role, she has been working alongside a team of mental health clinicians, developing resources for frontline providers supporting displaced immigrant families.
An attorney by training, Ivys’ background spans the fields of immigration, special education, neurodivergence, and family support. Her research interests focus on the impact of community health workers, social determinants of health, mixed-status immigrant families, and increasing access to special education services.
Ivys is also the co-investigator and co-founder of the EASE Clinic, which provides clinical support to families facing challenges accessing special education services. She co-authored the Family Preparedness Plan for immigrant families facing potential detention or deportation due to their immigration status.
Ready to Register?
Click the button below and we’ll see you on December 13th!
*Please note that our procedures have changed! You only need to register in one place, even if you want to receive CEs.*
Save the Dates for Our Upcoming Webinars:
We have a great year of webinars planned for you! We hope you’ll join us as we dive into the following topics in 2024.
November 15th: Skills for Psychological Recovery (SPR) (this is a special one-time training and will be held in SPANISH only) – Register Here
December 13th: Family Preparedness & Early Childhood Development in Latine Communities – Register Here
Programming for 2025 will be available soon!
Continuing Education
For participants that register for continuing education, these webinars will provide:
*1.5 Contact Hours (or 0.15 CEUs): Contact Hours include CEs for Social Workers, mental health clinicians, nurses, other healthcare providers, and several other disciplines who utilize contact hours.
CEUs are calculated by tenths. Example: 0.1 CEU = 1 Contact Hour of participation.
*NBCC credit: this program is approved for 1.5 NBCC Hours
El Futuro has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 6947. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. El Futuro is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs, including the awarding of NBCC credit.
Participants should confirm continuing education credit information for licensure requirements with their state licensing board(s). If you need any additional information about this webinar for your licensure, please reach out to us at lamesita@elfuturo-nc.org.
Cancellation Policy
In the event of a cancellation, we will provide notification as soon as possible so participants can adjust their schedule accordingly. Participants who need to cancel may choose to do so at any time but will not receive a Certificate of Completion.
Accommodations
Please contact lamesita@elfuturo-nc.org to let us know if you need accommodations at least 1 week before an event. We will work to the best of our abilities to fulfill all accommodation requests.
Concern Response and Grievance Policy
We have carefully modeled the environment around our learning activities to be one characterized by mutual collegiality, kindness, and a commitment to constant learning. This environment allows for providers of all disciplines, regardless of their level of experience, to feel comfortable in taking part in and benefiting from our programming. It is our hope that all La Mesita members will join us in preserving this environment we have cultivated over the years through your participation across our programming.
You can request our full grievance policy or submit a concern by reaching out to us at lamesita@elfuturo-nc.org.
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