Increasing Access to Youth Mental Health Awareness Training in Hispanic Communities in Georgia (Ortiz)
1. Please describe your activities during your Fellowship experience. Describe your final capstone project(s).
There were a number of opportunities that I had as a diversity fellow. One initiative that has meant a lot to me was the Latino Community of Practice at the Center for Leadership in Disability. Through this, I have been able to help with different programs such as the Adelante Autismo program that is held once a month for parents that have children with autism. I have also been able to translate materials for our Spanish Parent Academy in order to make it more accessible to primarily Spanish speaking families. Along with this, I have been able to attend different conferences and promote resources that are incredibly useful to different programs and families around Georgia. All of these different programs have given me different insight but also made me realize how lucky my sister is to have received the programs and help that she did when she was younger. Lastly, through the Diversity fellowship and my capstone project, I was given the opportunity to become certified as a bilingual Youth Mental Health First Aid instructor in both English and Spanish. As one of three bilingual instructors, we have been able to travel to different parts of Georgia to teach the curriculum and also help reduce the stigma within the Latinx community. It has been really life-changing to help professionals and family members recognize the signs and symptoms of mental health and resources.
2. Who did your project inform, help, influence or impact? (UCEDD, individual, community, state) How?
The Spanish Youth Mental Health First Aid curriculum has impacted the Spanish speaking community mostly because it has given the chance to bring information on recognizing the signs and symptoms and equipping them with the tools to find resources for mental disorders. The capstone’s goal was to measure whether the information would be received by the community because there is still a stigma in the Latinx community.
3. Why did you choose to work on that project(s)?
This project was extremely personal to me because while I am open about my mental illness now, it was much harder growing up. My family had a lot of stigma towards mental health and never really recognized the symptoms. Then later they did not know how to help me so we could not find the resources. I wanted to reduce those experiences for anyone else. This is why I felt this was so important and why I wanted to bring it to the community.
4. What did you gain from being a Diversity Fellow?
I gained so much more than I expected in terms of relationships with more community members and being able to network. It also changed my career path, I originally thought I wanted to be an occupational therapist but now I believe I will work in the public health sector.
5. How will this experience impact your education or career decisions?
I found great joy in providing resources to my underserved community. I believe that by working in public health and combining it with multicultural psychology I would be able to make a greater change in a broader way rather than in occupational therapy.
6. What are your future goals? Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?
As an undergraduate student, my future goal is to continue my education to graduate school. I would like to continue working on outreach in every way such as translations and research. I would also like to be able to serve more diverse undergraduate students to allow them in positions that will allow them to affect change.
7. What recommendations do you have for other fellows?
Communication is really important between your team and the community that you are working with in order to ensure that everyone is informed. It is important to keep the passion for whatever project you are working on
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