Our partners and friends at United Way of the Greater Triangle highlighted our Telehealth services – virtual therapy as an action taken during the pandemic to continue serving individuals and families with mental and emotional health treatment needs.
Our therapist Courtney Crawford had the opportunity to chat with them about the challenges we faced and the techniques that ultimately worked for the benefit of the Latino community. Here we share with you a little of what she said:
“Prior to the pandemic, we had a small department here at El Futuro that was doing tele-health and video therapy, so we were already piloting a little bit of this, but just with a handful of clients. When the pandemic happened, we really pivoted and said, ‘OK, let’s try and get all of our appointments happening through Zoom,'” said Courtney Crawford, therapist at El Futuro. “At the time we thought it would be very temporary, but obviously that has not been what’s happened.”
With United Way’s help, we were able to address some of the costs of pivoting to a more virtual model, whether that was providing technology or purchasing Zoom lines. We’ve also reallocated personnel to help clients download software like Zoom and figure out how to operate a video call.
Our services have been in high demand since the pandemic began, and our pivot to virtual has been invaluable for many clients — especially those who had to continue working in-person and taking care of their children at home.
“There was already a high demand for our services, and we recognized very quickly that the population we serve was going to be impacted really significantly by the pandemic, largely due to things like a decrease in access to resources like financial support, healthcare and health insurance. But along with that, a lot of people that we serve are also frontline workers,” said Crawford. “Their job was not going to be able to transition to working from home. And the children in the household suddenly needed technology to connect to their classes — a lot of the families we serve simply didn’t have those resources.”
“We recognize that it’s so important that we stay connected and that we find a way to stay connected. We can’t just shut our doors and wait and see, because this is going to put a lot of stress on the families that we serve,” she finished.
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*article taken from WRAL.com. This article was written for United Way of the Greater Triangle.
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