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Los adultos latinos en los Estados Unidos enfrentan serias disparidades en el cuidado de la salud mental. Una combinación de barreras a nivel de la persona, como el estigma, las actitudes negativas hacia los tratamientos de salud mental y la alfabetización limitada de la salud mental, contribuyen a estas desigualdades en la atención de la salud mental. Esta hoja informativa incluye información sobre cómo las barreras a nivel de persona impactan las disparidades en la atención de la salud mental en la comunidad latina. La hoja informativa también describe cómo una herramienta de alfabetización de la depresión titulada "Sentimientos secretos" que integra elementos culturales de la comunidad latina y utiliza un enfoque de educación de entretenimiento puede ayudar a abordar estas barreras para la atención. La información incluye resultados de estudios que indican que el uso de "Sentimientos secretos" puede mejorar la atención de salud mental en la comunidad latina

The current sociocultural climate and discourse in the United States elucidate the importance of understanding our humanity while fostering deeper cross-cultural relationships.   As the nation demographically represents a multitude of cultures, our ability to engage in thoughtful and meaningful discussions on cultural issues, remains ever-present.  This factsheet describes why and how cultural humility matters in our work as service providers, the current literature on color-blind racial ideology, and implicit bias. The factsheet mentions the importance of understanding one’s own limitations in ideologies as a way to enhance our service as cultural workers, both personally and professionally.

El clima y el discurso sociocultural actual en los Estados Unidos aclaran la importancia de comprender nuestra humanidad al tiempo que fomentamos relaciones interculturales más profundas. Como la nación representa demográficamente una multitud de culturas, nuestra capacidad de participar en debates reflexivos y significativos sobre temas culturales, permanece siempre presente. Esta hoja informativa describe por qué y cómo la humildad cultural es importante en nuestro trabajo como proveedores de servicios, la literatura actual sobre ideología racial daltónica y prejuicios implícitos. La hoja informativa menciona la importancia de comprender las propias limitaciones de las ideologías como una forma de mejorar nuestro servicio como trabajadores culturales, tanto personal como profesionalmente.

The National American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Technology Transfer Center would like to share with you Volume 1, Issue 2 of our newsletter, Mental Health in our Native American Communities for Fall 2019. This issue is entitled, "First Episode and High-Risk Psychosis". Please take a few moments to explore this issue.

This environmental scan is a repository of evidence-based mental health programs and practices found to be effective with American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) school-aged children and youth who experience adverse childhood experiences, including violence and trauma, that contribute to mental health problems. It was created in an effort to provide a repository that could be used by communities who serve Native school-age children, as well as to avoid the duplication of efforts.

This document informs on what complicated grief is and how the Hispanic and Latino children and youth express it. It provides key aspects of Hispanic and Latino culture and three evidence-based interventions that have been proven to work to address the grieving process with Hispanic and Latino children, youths, and their families. Also, it covers how school personnel can manage this process.  

This brief document informs about the prevalence of bullying among Hispanic and Latino students in the school setting.  Although we have observed a decrease in bullying statistics, Hispanics and Latino students can be the target of these violent behaviors due to race or ethnicity. The document covers effective prevention efforts to address bullying in the school setting. English and Spanish versions are available. Spanish version

Este documento informa sobre la prevalencia del acoso escolar en los estudiantes hispanos y latinos. Aunque se ha observado un descenso en las estadísticas de bullying en esta población, los estudiantes hispanos y latinos pueden ser víctimas de conductas violentas por su raza o etnia. El documento incluye esfuerzos efectivos de prevención del acoso en el ambiente escolar. English Version

This infographic summarizes how discrimination and acculturation stress affects Hispanic and Latino children and youth mental health and the reasons for seeking mental health services. It also covers three promising evidence-based interventions that address the mental health needs of Hispanic and Latino children and youth. English and Spanish versions are available.

En esta infografía se resume como la discriminación y el estrés de aculturación afecta a los niños y jóvenes hispanos y latinos, también las razones para buscar servicios de salud mental. El documento incluye tres intervenciones prometedoras basadas en evidencia que aborda las necesidades de salud mental en esta población.

This document informs about the importance of students' mental health in school, the provision of school mental health services, and the role of social workers in the school setting. It also covers key elements for understanding and engaging Hispanic and Latino students and families into mental health care. 

The infographic highlights factors contributing to stress among Hispanic and Latino communities due to racial and ethnicity discrimination.

Every year we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month and make strides to helping the broader U.S. society learn more about Hispanics as a group. This is important and we should continue to do so. But to truly begin to impact the health and mental health inequities impacting Latinx, we must go beyond the three F’s that characterize heritage months: food, fun, and festival. We need to better understand the significant differences in the very diverse Latinx community, from generational, linguistic, and acculturation differences among various Latinx subgroups, to geographic differences across the U.S. We must also truly understand that being Latinx is not sufficient to effectively work with Latinx communities, and that non-Latinx providers, who are the majority of providers, can learn to work effectively with the Latinx community. This 1-hour webinar targeted to Latinx and non-Latinx providers will help us begin to “unpack” Latinx diversity and discuss what this diversity means for service provision in health and behavioral health. At the conclusion of this webinar, participants will be able to: 1. Understand significant differences in the very diverse Latinx community, including generational, linguistic, acculturation, and geographic differences. 2. Discuss challenges in assuming that being Latinx is all we need to effectively work with Latinx clients. 3. List strategies to enlist non-Latinx providers in our efforts to address Latinx health and behavioral health inequities. 4. List strategies for increasing the competency and proficiency of all providers who work with Latinx communities.

This presentation will look at creative intervention strategies to address the continually evolving needs in a newcomer campus that works primarily with Latino students. We will discuss the spectrum of “traditional” mental health services as well as best practices that have been implemented, including the therapy bunny, garden, and restorative circles. An overview of the needs of the school and the students will be presented to provide background on the development and implementation of the intervention strategies. The challenges that have arisen, creative solutions that have been adopted and the unexpected successes will be shared to provide participants strategies that they can implement in their settings.   

In this webinar, we describe a community campaign that we developed and evaluated to reduce the treatment delay of Latinos with first-episode of psychosis. We first review the rationale for early intervention of persons with psychotic disorders, especially for high-risk groups that include Latinos residing in the United States. Then we describe our conceptual model of psychosis literacy that guided our campaign. We also point out how we constructed our campaign message using simple everyday language and how we evaluated the different resources of the campaign regarding efficacy and effectiveness. We then describe the key elements of the two-year campaign and report the evaluation of the campaign. We propose ways to improve future campaigns to reduce treatment delay. Our campaign and other initiatives give us hope that we can ease the suffering of persons with early psychosis and their families.

Aging is a fact of life and it is frequently accompanied by declining health, but it does not always have to be that way. The aging adult is frequently expected to manifest deficits in cognition, and these deficits can be part of a primary brain degenerative process, a psychiatric illness, or physical disease. These conditions either individually or combined interact with each other, meaning that the presence of one can make the other one worse. Any of these conditions along with other social factors, such as the environment where one is born, lives or works, ethnicity, income, support system, level of acculturation, and the degree of health literacy can facilitate or obstruct access to care and eventually influence health outcomes. This presentation will explain the interaction of these conditions in the Latino elderly, and the known barriers coming from the health system and health disparities perspective. The presentation will close with ideas of what you can do at home while working with the Latino elderly, and with a short video of an older Latino woman who will explain her desire to live in spite of her illnesses. With the Latino aging population growing in the US, it is our turn to promote health messages that resonate with their needs and preferences, such as optimism and acceptance, connectedness, independence, and self-worth.

The state of affairs in the United States and globally currently places policies over people. The intersection of international territories and human rights is most salient in our discourse on immigration. The impact systemic policies have on families, particularly children, is profound and deeply troubling. This webinar will address the challenges immigrant children face, including unaccompanied minors, and how school-based systems can create supportive contexts for children and their families.

Hispanics and Latinos' cultural values are essential for a competent mental health services, assessment and treatment.

The National Hispanic and Latino Mental Health Technology Transfer Center is proud to present Mental Health Bytes; a series of short videos discussing mental health topics around Hispanic and Latinos.   We know that you are busy, that is why we are giving you bytes of information to be acquainted for and for your clients.   In this video, Dr. Zayas shares valuable insight on young Latinas regarding suicide attempt, and some strategies that you can implement as providers.  If you want more information here are some resources:   Zayas, L. (2011). Latinas attempting suicide: When cultures, families, and daughters collide. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.    Zayas, L. (2015). Forgotten citizens: Deportation, children, and the making of American exiles and orphans. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.   If someone needs help you can share the Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255 (English) 1-888-628-9454 (Spanish).

Culture shapes every aspect of patient care, influencing when, where, how, and to whom patients narrate their experiences of illness and distress, the patterning of symptoms, and the models clinicians use to interpret and understand symptoms in terms of psychiatric diagnoses. Culture also shapes patients’ perceptions of care, including what types of treatment are acceptable and for how long. Even when patients and clinicians share similar cultural, ethnic or linguistic backgrounds, culture impacts care through other influences on identity, such as those due to gender, age, class, race, occupation, sexual orientation, and religion. Culture affects the clinical encounter for every patient, not only underserved minority groups, and cultural formulation therefore is an essential component of any comprehensive assessment. Cultural misunderstandings, biases, and communication gaps between providers and patients also contribute to disparities in the care of diverse populations, including by race/ethnicity, religion, gender identity, and sexual orientation, suggesting person-centered cultural evaluation may help reduce care disparities. The purposes of this webinar are to understand the rationale, development, and content of a novel approach for conducting cultural assessments: the DSM-5 Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI); and to discuss training resources and implementation strategies for integrating the CFI in diagnostic and treatment planning.

The current sociocultural climate and discourse in the United States elucidates the importance of understanding our humanity while fostering deeper cross-cultural relationships. As the nation demographically represents a multitude of cultures, our ability to engage in thoughtful and meaningful discussions on cultural issues, remains ever present. This webinar addresses why cultural humility matters in our work as service providers, the current literature on color-blind racial ideology, and implicit bias. The webinar provides insight into the importance of understanding one’s own limitations in ideologies as a way to enhance our service as cultural workers, both personally and professionally.

Latino adults in the United States face serious mental health care disparities. A combination of person-level barriers, such as, stigma, negative attitudes toward mental health treatments, and limited mental health literacy, contribute to these inequities in mental health care. In this presentation, Dr. Cabassa will review the literature on how person-level barriers impact mental health care disparities in the Latino community. He will describe how a depression literacy tool entitled “Secret Feelings” that integrates cultural elements from the Latino community and uses an entertainment-education approach can help address these barriers to care. He will discuss the practice and research implications of using “Secret Feelings” to improve mental health care in the Latino community.

Mental health among all cultures is one of the most relevant topics in today’s news. The webinar discusses the impact of mental health services in the school setting. As part of the National Hispanic Latino and Mental Health Technology Transfer Center ongoing commitment with School-Based mental health awareness, we bring to you Scott Bloom, LCSW-R. Mr. Bloom has extensive experience working with schools as a social worker, supervisor and directed nine school mental health clinics, and currently as the Director of School Mental Health services for the NYC Office of School Health. Through this webinar participants will understand how we all can learn a common language between mental health and school communities, recognize why is student’s mental health important to consider in the school settings, and the importance that mental health providers understand how to engage the Hispanic and Latino community.

The current sociocultural climate and discourse in the United States elucidates the importance of understanding our humanity while fostering deeper cross-cultural relationships. As the nation demographically represents a multitude of cultures, our ability to engage in thoughtful and meaningful discussions on cultural issues, remains ever present. This webinar addresses why cultural humility matters in our work as service providers, the current literature on color-blind racial ideology, and implicit bias. The webinar provides insight into the importance of understanding one’s own limitations in ideologies as a way to enhance our service as cultural workers, both personally and professionally.