The UT at Austin Steve Hicks School of Social and National Hispanic and Latino Mental Health Technology Transfer Center is hosting a 3-part webinar series Addressing our bias when working with the LGBTQ+ Community. This webinars series is a basic level educational event for school mental health providers, teachers, school personnel, and school administrators.
LGBTQ communities face health disparities linked to stigma, discrimination, and denial of their civil and human rights. LGBTQ individuals have higher rates of psychiatric disorders, substance use, violence, and suicide and may encounter lack of acceptance by their family members and the society which. affects their mental health and personal safety. This webinar series will be served to explore how bias impact our worldview and the work with the LGBTQ population, to identify health disparities among LGTBQ population, and to explore interventions to create a safe space and minimize the impact of implicit bias.
Learning Objectives:
Who should attend? This is a basic level workshop designed for mental health providers, school mental health providers, and school administrators.
About the presenters:
Jesús Ortega, LMSW –Director, Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion - Dell Medical School at UT Austin- is originally from Venezuela. Jesús has worked for economic, social, and environmental justice almost all his professional life. Mr. Ortega moved his organizing and advocacy efforts working with marginalized immigrants communities of color from NY to Texas over 15 years ago. Mr. Ortega, hold the position of Executive Director at Out Youth, an LGBTQ youth organization in Austin. Jesús later started working with the Austin Stress Clinic’s Batters Intervention Program, as a facilitator of psycho-educational interventions for violence prevention. Mr. Ortega as the Assistant Director at the ASC concentrated on studying the efficacy of BIPPs interventions and developed innovated curriculum that focused on deconstructing masculinity and its impact on violence against women. This work took Mr. Ortega to Recife Brazil, where he spent half a year working with and evaluating a violence prevention program for youth at the PAPAI Institute. Jesús, previous to his new position at DMS, hold the position of Deputy Director at The Alamo Area Resource Center, a not-for-profit organization working with people living with HIV/AIDS and medical services to the LGBT community in San Antonio. He also worked as adjunct faculty of UTSA College of Public Policy in the Department of social work where he teaches cultural competency and global social work. He holds a Master’s Degree in Social Work from UTSA, and a Master’s Degree in Urban Planning from the City University of New York. He is also a graduate of Columbia University School of Business on Non-profit Management.
Yovanska Duarté-Vélez, PhD- received her PhD from the University of Puerto Rico and is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University and Bradley Hospital. Dr. Duarté-Vélez is also a licensed clinical psychologist with extensive experience with children and families from diverse backgrounds. Her research interests are to develop and tailor treatments for diverse populations (e.g. ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender) according to their needs and cultural values. Another goal is to incorporate health disparity studies into her research. Her work has focused on the assessment and treatment of Latinx youth with suicidal behaviors in the context of their family and society. She started her career as a clinical researcher in the University of Puerto Rico, where she developed a CBT protocol that addresses culture and adolescence developmental stage as central components in treatment, the Socio-Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Suicidal Behaviors (SCBT-SB) supported by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). She transported this protocol from Puerto Rico to Rhode Island to expand its applicability to Latinx youth living in the USA through an NIMH training grant. Dr. Duarté-Vélez completed a pilot randomized clinical trial (RCT) of the SCBT-SB versus Treatment as Usual (TAU) in a “real world” setting with positive results. Currently, she is conducting a randomized clinical trial to test the efficacy and effectiveness of the SCBT-SB funded by the National Institute on Minority and Health Disparities. She has provided training to clinicians, teachers, gatekeepers, and caregivers in diverse topics related to prevention, assessment, and treatment of mental health. As an immigrant Latina woman in the United States, she has stayed close to her community and participates as a Board Member of “Progreso Latino”, the largest community organization in Rhode Island serving the Latinx community.