We are writing to update you on important changes regarding the Esperanza, Nuestra Cultura de Salud initiative at Centro and outline our next steps.
Demands for Spanish-speaking psychologists have increased over the last two decades recognizing the need to meet a rapidly growing Spanish-speaking Latine* population in the U.S. (Guilman, 2015; Smith, 2018; Stringer, 2015; *Latine is a gender-inclusive term in Spanish). In 2020, the calls for bilingual and bicultural counselors were amplified as the COVID-19 pandemic unveiled the urgency and already existing disparities experienced in health and mental health care among Latine communities (Fortuna et al., 2020; Liu & Modir, 2020; SAMHSA, 2020). Alarmingly, there has been a documented downward trend nationally in mental health treatment offered in Spanish (Pro et al., 2022). Across the country, there is a decline in availability of mental health services in Spanish, even in states with the fastest growing Latine populations (Pro et al., 2022).
Esperanza has been an innovative community-engaged justice-oriented model and partnership between Centro and the University of Wisconsin-Madison that aimed to increase access to quality, culturally affirming and linguistically appropriate mental health services for Spanish-speaking Latines across Dane County. This partnership was leveraged through a 5-year grant funded by the Wisconsin Partnership Program to grow the number of culturally- and linguistically competent bilingual mental health providers. The funding also has transformed “how” we do services at Centro through capacity-building. See: Esperanza – CENTRO HISPANO (micentro.org)
Esperanza aimed to address these needs by developing the Esperanza Bilingual Psychological Services Graduate Certificate, offered through the Counseling Psychology department at UW-Madison. This certificate was designed for Spanish-speaking graduate students in counseling, psychology, and other helping professions. We successfully recruited and trained the first cohort of 8 Esperanza students, who graduated in May 2023. However, we have been unable to continue the program due to a lack of sustainable funding, insufficient recruitment and retention of Latine and Spanish-speaking trainees at UW-Madison, and the absence of retention efforts for the Director of Training, Dr. Alyssa M. Ramírez Stege.
“This is a total and complete missed opportunity for much needed intervention. As a Latine community, it is our right to have spaces for grieving and healing from trauma. With no support from the flagship institution, the University of Wisconsin, we are left to tackle this gap in the system, once again on our own.” said Dr. Karen Menendez Coller, Centro Executive Director.
Dr. Ramírez Stege will be resigning from UW-Madison effective Friday September 13, 2024. Despite her extensive efforts to secure sustainable funding for the continuation of the Esperanza Bilingual Psychological Services Graduate Certificate, no viable solution was found. Esperanza leadership consulted with programs, departments, and institutions across the UW-Madison system. Although many partners expressed their admiration and support of Esperanza, none could commit funding to continue the program and no efforts were made to retain Dr. Ramírez Stege at UW-Madison.
Dr. Ramírez Stege has accepted a Clinical Director position at Portland Mental Health and Wellness (PMHW), where she will help develop a Latine Spanish-speaking mental health outpatient clinic in Portland, OR, starting in October 2024. PMHW, a Queer and BIPOC-owned and operated mental health services organization, aligns closely with the focus and development that Dr. Ramírez Stege brought to the Esperanza program.
We are excited to continue collaborating with Dr. Ramírez Stege as we transition the Esperanza program to Centro. Centro is dedicated to supporting the Esperanza mission of enhancing community wellbeing through programming at Centro that enhances psychosocial support and promotes structural change. Esperanza will continue to evolve as we seek sustainable ways to support Latine social and emotional well-being locally, statewide, and beyond.
The Esperanza leadership team remains committed to strengthening the Dane County Latinx community through systems that support Esperanza (hope) as necessary for good health. In 2025 the team will pivot to transition Esperanza to community-facing supports the Dane County Latine community can rely on for the well-being of young people and their families.
Centro Hispano of Dane County
As the leading non-profit organization working with the Latinx population in Dane County, Wisconsin which includes Madison and the surrounding communities, Centro has a forty-year history of uplifting and strengthening local communities. The organization has worked tirelessly to keep up with the growth of the Latinx community in Dane County and now supports over 7,000 individuals annually with more than 20,000 hours of programming. Centro’s initiatives are some of the only bilingual/bicultural programs focused on serving Latinx communities in Dane County and the organization serves as a key resource for the city, county, state and local school districts and partners with over a hundred nonprofits and employers in the area. To meet the growing needs of Latinx in Dane County, Centro has tripled the size of its staff and doubled the number of programs it offers from just ten years ago.
References:
Fortuna, L. R., Tolou-Shams, M., Robles-Ramamurthy, B., & Porche, M. V. (2020). Inequity and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color in the United States: The need for a trauma-informed social justice response. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 12(5), 443–445. https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0000889
Guilman, S. R. (2015). Beyond interpretation: The need for English-Spanish bilingual psychotherapists in counseling centers. James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal, 2(1), 26-30.
Liu, S. R., & Modir, S. (2020). The outbreak that was always here: Racial trauma in the context of COVID-19 and implications for mental health providers. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 12(5), 439–442. https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0000784
Pro, G., Brown, C., Rojo, M., Patel, J., Flax, C., & Haynes, T. (2022). Downward National Trends in Mental Health Treatment Offered in Spanish: State Differences by Proportion of Hispanic Residents. Psychiatric Services, 73(11), 1232–1238. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.202100614
SAMHSA. (2020). Double jeopardy COVID-19 and Behavioral Health Disparities for Black and Latino Communities in the U.S. https://nationaldec.org/wp-content/uploads/99-Article.pdf
Smith, B.L. (2018). Spanish-speaking psychologists in demand. Monitor on Psychology, 49(6) https://www.apa.org/monitor/2018/06/spanish-speaking
Stringer, H. (2015). Se solicitan psicólogos que hablen Español (Wanted: Spanish-speaking psychologists). gradPSYCH Magazine, 04. https://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2015/04/spanish-speaking
