This article concerns the establishment and development of La Clinica In LaK’ech, a bilingual mental health clinic collectively founded and staffed by a counseling psychologist and doctoral students in a counseling psychology doctoral program in the Southeast United States. During over 5 years of existence, the clinic has blended bilingual counseling psychology services, advocacy, interdisciplinary collaboration, and research with the Latinx population. The authors describe the development of the clinic and resultant clinical, training, and ethical issues that confronted the clinic in terms of providing services to a marginalized community in a state where anti-immigrant rhetoric, detention, and deportations were escalating. Also discussed are implications for training in practice, advocacy, service, and research for counseling psychologists working with Latinx communities.
The authors seek to provide a more holistic, compassionate, and liberatory understanding of Latinx families. This chapter will highlight the importance of understanding families from a historical, culturally centered manner that honors their layered experiences of contextual factors, intergenerational trauma, and strengths-based approach. This chapter seeks to honor ethnic heterogeneity and cultural strengths and expand the notion of what consists of the family constellation. In doing so, the chapter will focus on central aspects of la familia, including child development, parenting, and recommendations focused on engaging Latinx families and improving the assessment and family interventions.
Background: This exploratory study determined if a relationship exists between secondary traumatic stress (STS) related to health status, health outcomes, and health practices among child protection workers in a Southern state. Methods: This study used a cross-sectional survey research design that included a non-probability sample of child protection workers (N=196). Data were collected face-to-face and online between April 2018 and November 2019 from multiple county agencies. A self-administered questionnaire was completed focused on various health behaviors, outcomes, and workplace perceptions. Results: Results of the zero-order correlations suggest that higher levels of STS were significantly associated with not having visited a doctor for a routine checkup (r=-0.17, P=0.04), more trips to see a doctor (r=0.16, P=0.01), and increased number of visits to emergency room (ER) (r=0.20, P=0.01). Lower levels of STS were associated with better self-rated health (SRH) (r=-0.32, P≤0.001), higher perceptions of health promotion at work (r=-0.29, P≤0.001), frequent exercise (r=-0.21, P=0.01), and by avoiding salt (r=-0.20, P≤0.031). T-test results suggest that workers who did not have children (µ=45.85, SD=14.02, P=0.01) and non-Hispanic white workers (µ=51.79, SD=11.62, P≤0.001) reported significantly higher STS levels than workers who had children (µ=39.73, SD=14.58) and self-identified as Black (µ=39.01, SD=14.38). Conclusion: Findings show that increased interpersonal trauma was linked to unhealthy eating, general physical health problems, and health care utilization. If not addressed, both STS and poor health and health outcomes can have unfavorable employee outcomes, such as poor service delivery.
Four first-generation Latinxs use their personal lived experiences and the experiences that they bear witness to as mental health practitioners to provide a critical lens on the decolonization of intergenerational trauma (IGT) in the Latinx community. The authors acknowledge that IGT is rooted in systemic oppression and colonization. They explore the systemic, cultural, interpersonal, and intrapersonal bidirectional impact that these areas have on the well-being of Latinxs. They highlight the inherent resistance and resilience skills that Latinxs have to survive and thrive from trauma. The authors share culturally responsive interventions that reclaim the cultural values of Latinxs to promote holistic healing and end the transmission of trauma.
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