Expired Dímelo en Español: A Social Justice Framework in Strengthening Latinx Immigrant Families

The current political climate is impacting Latinx/immigrant families: injuring their emotional, psychological, spiritual, physical and social development. These families face unique dilemmas that impact their sense of self and security, their ability to parent and their hopes as a family. Family therapists need to deepen their understanding of these families’ experiences and attend empathically to their socio-cultural and socio-political contexts.

In this workshop, Silvia Espinal and Genoveva Garcia will examine a specialized family therapy framework that at its core adopts and attends to cultural sensitivity, intersectionality and the stance of the therapist. Using this strength-based and relational approach, participants will explore and clarify the presenting problem in a collaborative manner, understand the meaning of the family’s experience of immigration and migration and its relationship to the presenting problem, look to understand the challenges of parenting and being parented in a bilingual and bicultural environment while navigating multiple contexts and understand families’ experiences with oppressive systems.

Learning Objectives:

• Review guidelines for attending to the needs of Latinx/ immigrant families
• Understand the challenges of parenting and being parented in a bilingual and bicultural environment while navigating multiple contexts
• Explore social justice and multicultural lenses in the work with Latinx/immigrant families

Presenters:

Silvia Espinal, LCSW, is the Director of Latino Youth & Family Immigration Project: Dimelo en Español at Ackerman Institute for the Family, Faculty at Columbia University School of Social Work, Faculty at Smith College School of Social Work, Adjunct Faculty at CUNY.

Genoveva Garcia, LCSW, is the Associate Director of Latino Youth & Family Immigration Project: Dimelo en Español at Ackerman Institute for the Family, Faculty at Center for the Developing Child at Ackerman, and a Family Therapist at Freedom Institute.