Bob Stewart knew that some students were frequently missing class or dropping out of the Gladstone School District in Gladstone, Ore (14.6% Latino). But he didn’t know why. Stewart came to realize his students face trauma─neglect, mental illness, poverty, foster care, divorced or jailed parents, and other adverse childhood experiences─that affect their school attendance and long-term social, emotional, mental, and physical health. He wanted to help. He started mental health services in his district. Stewart wanted to go bigger. Could he achieve his goal of starting a statewide learning collaborative to educate other school districts how to support students who have adverse childhood experiences?
Absenteeism: A Symptom of a Larger Problem
Stewart, who started as ...
Family separations. Broken families. Little social support. In these tough times, abuela and abuelo often have to step up a caregivers for young children. That is why Raheem Baraka's Baraka Community Wellness partnered with nonprofit Tree of Life to create a unique support group for Spanish-speaking grandparents who are doubling as caregivers in Boston (19% Latino). "There are many grandparents who are raising their grandchildren," Baraka told Salud America! in July 2018. "There are broken families. There are challenges around our people staying together in highly traumatic and stressful situations."
The Need for Grandparents as Caregivers
In 2016, a record 64 million people, or 20% of the U.S. population, lived with multiple generations under one roof, according to a recent ...
Fear. Of being deported. Losing homes. Losing children. Minvera Perez knows Latino immigrants live in constant fear in East Hampton, N.Y. (17.1% Latino), which stresses these parents and kids—not to mention harming their physical and mental health. Perez wanted to help. How could she overcome Latino families' grim fears and stresses, and ease their mental health burden?
Levels of Fear
Perez is executive director of Organizacion Latino-Americana of Eastern Long Island (OLA). OLA promotes cultural, social, economic, and educational development within Long Island’s East End Latino communities, specifically Suffolk County, N.Y. (19.5% Latino). Perez and OLA are speaking up for social justice for Latino immigrants. "Right now, Latino members in our community need ...
Raheem J. Baraka grew up seeing health inequity all around him in Boston (19% Latino). He saw people in one low-income neighborhood suffer more disease, less access to health care, and live 33 years less than people in a wealthy area just 2.7 miles away. He saw doctors treating illnesses, not addressing prevention or social determinants of health. He was fed up. So Baraka started Baraka Community Wellness. The nonprofit group makes health a civil rights issue by creating programs to address health equity and the social determinants of health, such as the unique "Healthy Moms, Healthy Kids" program to connect single moms to access to healthy eating, physical activity, and social support from financial aid to housing advocacy. "I truly have a disdain for disparity and ...
Dr. Heyman Oo treated a lot of traumatized child immigrants while a pediatric resident at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and now as pediatrician at a California clinic system. Oo knows these kids often face extreme poverty before immigration. After, they face parental separation, detention, and discrimination. No wonder they also suffer stress, depression, and other mental health issues, and are at risk for dropping out of school and absenteeism, according to a Salud America! research review. Oo wanted to help. She joined a task force designed to support children amid a growing number of unaccompanied minors being apprehended at the California border, which led to a big change.
Unaccompanied Minors In 2014, more than 68,000 unaccompanied immigrant minors were ...
As an avid cyclist, Brian Pearson loved riding the new $8 million hike-and-bike trail in his town of Fall River, Mass. (8% Latino). Then he learned a new road project could damage the trail. The 2.4-mile Alfred J. Lima Quequechan River Rail Trail—which fully opened in May 2017 after nine years of work and an $8 million investment by the state to improve mobility and access to safe places to play—was jeopardized when city officials tried to enable a developer to build a road that would have crossed and re-routed the trail. Pearson and others were outraged. They gathered information, attended city meetings, and held a rally. They even hired a lawyer to fight for trail preservation. Would it be enough to save the trail?
Restoring the River The Quequechan River Rail ...
A few years ago, San Antonio City Council member Rey Saldaña tried his own transportation experiment. He ditched his car and relied on public transit for one month. The good? Saldaña met great people. He read. He explored the city. Parking was no problem. The bad? When buses ran late, he missed connections and showed up late to council meetings. Rain drenched him at bus stops. He had to skip fun activities because of a lack of frequent routes. Saldaña’s eye-opening experiment led him to champion more funding for VIA Metropolitan Transit (VIA), the regional mass transit agency serving San Antonio and Bexar County, which operates with the least amount of funding among all major transit authorities in Texas. His efforts spurred the city to invest millions to improve public ...
Police came to four-year-old Fatimah Muhammad’s house in Newark, N.J. (34% Latino), after an altercation between her parents. They came in with force. They had guns. They aggressively grabbed and body-slammed her father before taking him away, Muhammad said. “I was completely terrified,” she said. “Instead of feeling grateful.” As a kid, Muhammad didn’t have a name for some of the traumas that she and her neighborhood were experiencing, like police aggression, domestic violence, and mass incarceration. But she felt an “us vs. them” sense when it came to police. Years later, amid a wave of unlawful policing in Newark, Muhammad helped seize an opportunity to unite police and community to explore trauma and rebuild trust.
‘Unconstitutional’ Law ...
Latino youth are facing a rising diabetes crisis. Many lack support needed to manage their disease. That's why Dr. Siripoom McKay of Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital helped create the Young Adult Diabetes Clinic to provide a medical home for diabetes management and support for Latino and all young adults. The program helps young adults ages 17-26 who may have been relying on parents for practical things like picking up their medication, setting appointments, and dealing with insurance. Young adults get connected to a physician, dietician, psychologist, social worker, and diabetes educator without parents to make sure they’re ready to go off on their own. This makes a smooth transition as they go out on their own and manage the chronic illness like ...
