Your Role in Supporting Latino Mental Health Amid Political Changes
Dear friends,
Many of you have been reaching out to El Futuro to understand how the administration change is impacting the Latino community we serve and the work that we do so I wanted to respond.
What we know
- Political uncertainty and anti-Latino rhetoric do impact our collective mental health as our Executive Director, Dr. Luke Smith, shared in a recent WUNC article.
- Organizations like El Futuro could potentially be targeted.
- There is increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in all states and in North Carolina and there is also a perception that ICE is everywhere (NYTimes article: ‘People think ICE is everywhere’)
- Our clients and staff and partners are sharing stories of crippling fear and anxiety.
- We have seen some uptick in canceled or missed appointments, however it is difficult to tell if this is due to weather, fear/concern or a combination, and will require more analysis.
What we are doing
- Our first priority is to our mission which is to nurture stronger familias, so we are continuing all services as usual. We will continue to serve clients during regular business hours and to provide walk-in clinic Tuesday-Thursday from 9am-12pm. The trust of our community and the sense of safety in coming to us for care remain paramount.
- Regardless of policy-shifts, anti-Latino rhetoric is a burden for our staff and our clients. Given this heightened level of stress, we are checking in with one another through open office hours for our staff and frequent communications.
- We are evaluating funding sources and engaging our wide network of supporters as we, like so many other community-serving organizations, have seen contradictory information about the availability of federal funding.
- We have formed internal work committees to stay abreast of all the changes and to suggest actions, trainings, adjustments, etc.
- We are engaging our system-level partners and advocates to ensure we get good guidance and good advocacy from our friends.
- We are hiring more staff with a focus on community health workers. Community health workers often go into churches and homes and their impact is felt by an exponential number of people in the community.
What you can do
- Check in on one another. One of El Futuro’s core values is Calor Humano or human warmth. We engage calor humano when we downshift into our shared humanity.
- Keep checking in on us. We will continue to need your help, your perspective, your donations, your encouragement. Our team is very focused on addressing the immediate mental health needs in our community, so our capacity is limited for external requests at this time, but as we learn more, we will share more resources and tangible opportunities to support and be involved.
- If you would like to make a financial donation to underwrite El Futuro’s work at this time, you can learn more here. We also encourage you to support other local organizations, including:
- El Centro Hispano
- El Vinculo Hispano
- Immigrant Solidary Fund
- ISLA NC
- El Pueblo
- Refugee Community Partnership
- Consider engaging in training opportunities around mental health support and wellness. Wonderful trainings include:
- Training Resources for Resilience™ offers free and low-cost community oriented, resilience-based crisis response training
- Mental Health First Aid is a comprehensive, lay-oriented mental health response training
Be creative and find ways to build more community and to take care of one another. Art, nature, music, play. There is no right or wrong way to do these things, and they all promote mental health.
In closing, please know how grateful we are for each of you and all you do for our community.
With heartfelt thanks,
Kerry Brock,
Associate Director
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