A research team from UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz School gave the presentation “Resilience in the Latinx Community: Working Collaboratively for Social Justice and Equity” as part of the 2020 National Latinx Psychology Association (NLPA) virtual conference on October 29-30. Department of Counseling, Clinical and School Psychology Professor Melissa L. Morgan led the team that featured doctoral students Erick Felix and Veronica Franco, and undergraduate student Nicole Ramirez.
The 2020 NLPA conference’s theme was “You Are My Other Me: Creating Communities of Healing.” The National Latinx Psychological Association (NLPA) is a national organization of mental health professionals, academics, researchers, and students whose objective is to generate and advance psychological knowledge and foster its effective application for the benefit of Latinxs. NLPA’s membership represents a rich diversity of national background, ethnicity, cultural origin, religious tradition, and political ideology. We work in a wide range of professional and academic settings.
The presentation grew out of work begun by the Santa Barbara Wellness Project (SBWP). The Santa Barbara Wellness Project was initially a response to the immediate crisis of the suicides of Latino teens in late 2009. Since then, the team has trained hundreds of community members and mental health professionals in wellness skills. Over the past several years, the Wellness Project has evolved into a more general wellness training program that provides skills to manage stress and problems effectively.
The SBWP Mission is “to contribute to the wellbeing of children, adults, and families in the county of Santa Barbara. SBWP does this by bringing the community together to celebrate and build upon life strengths and successes to overcome adversity. The goal is for all community members to live better and support and share lifestyles of wellness.”