Aliento Workshops and Training

Programs on parenting skills, relationships, dealing with stress, and other emotional challenges, are among topics presented. Workshops and presentations are conducted in both English and Spanish. We also provide professional training to mental health providers in the area of culturally responsive therapy with Latinx communities. Our intent is to ensure that those agencies and individuals providing services to the community have access to the most up-to-date research and therapeutic techniques available.

There are no workshops or training's currently being offered at this time. Please check back in the near future.

Past Aliento Student Presentations

Aliento students gathered together this semester to decipher some of the most prevalent issues facing the Latina/o community. Conducting studies and literature reviews, they were given the opportunity to present at different renowned conferences. These conferences took place in Los Angeles and Albuquerque, please see below to see what the research entailed.

Students: Margarita McLaughlin and Mackenzi Kingdon presented at the "Multicultural Research and Training Biennial Conference" that was held at Pepperdine University's West Los Angeles campus. The conference took place on October 11, 2014.

Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Tomas Martinez

Title of Poster Presented: "Cultural Identity with Latina/o Youth: Culturally-Centered Creative Approaches"

The Poster Highlighted: The effects of both positive psychology and creative therapy for developing Latina/o youth cultural identity. Our research will seek to discover the ways in which using a positive psychology approach with Latina/o children and adolescents will affect self-esteem and cultural identity. It will also focus on the specific ways culturally centered creative therapies (such as cuentos and altar building) can improve cultural identity and how they might work in conjunction with positive psychology with Latina/o youth.

Students: Cesar Rodriguez, Susy Karraa, Mayra Estrada, and Pilar Gomez-Marmolejo presented at the "National Latina/o Psychological Association (NLPA) Biennial Conference 2014" that was held in Albuquerque, NM. The conference took place on October 23-26, 2014.

Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Carrie Castañeda-Sound

Titles of Posters Presented: "Resilience and Depression in Immigrant Children Separated by the Deportation of Their Parents"; "Examining Protective Factors in Latino Graduate Students as Determinants of Academic Achievement"

The Poster Highlighted: Immigration and immigration reform has been a controversial subject in the United States for many years. Some sections of society seek immigration control by closure of borders while other sections pursue a more amicable approach with immigration reform. Regardless of either political view, the forced separation of families not only affects the deportees but their children who are left behind. With this in mind, our objective for this presentation was to briefly review the data available that addresses this issue. Although there have been studies demonstrating that most immigrant families and their children are resilient enough to cope with the challenges of resettlement and may not need mental health interventions, very little empirical data has been available to determine the extent to which these perceptions are accurate. In addition, there are limited studies that focus on the impact of immigration and deportation on parents and not on the effects it has on children. Due to this ongoing issue it is crucial to address the lack of research conducted in this topic. Therefore, it is worth investigating the resilience factor more closely in order to provide an ecological framework of reference in the well-being of immigrant children. Our goal is to replicate studies that closely assess the potential stressors faced by these children and establish interventions to foster resilience.