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SALT LAKE CITY — Latino Behavioral Health Services has made great strides in closing the gap in mental health services for Utah’s Hispanic population.
But the nonprofit’s small facility often forced it to limit the number of customers it could serve at one time. The new, larger facility on his first floor at 3269 S. Main in Salt Lake City allows Latino Behavioral Health to serve nearly twice as many customers as before, several thousand.
Latino Behavioral Health provides mental health services for children and adults, including counseling, peer support groups, and classes in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. The majority of clients are Spanish-speaking, underinsured or uninsured, housing unstable, and unemployed.
Teresa Molina, board president and co-founder, said the nonprofit was created to address the severe lack of mental health services in the Latino community.
“We knew that our children and our people were dying like flies and that we needed better health services,” she said. “We are now over 15 to 17 percent of the state’s population, and in some counties over 20 percent, and we cannot expect this essential population to learn English to access mental health services. We need to create providers.” Their primary language is Spanish, and that’s what we do as Latino Behavioral Studies. We’re building this workforce from the ground up. ”
Executive Director Javier Alegre said the new office is not only about 2.5 times more square footage, but also has a number of different rooms where employees can provide different types of services at the same time, which was not possible in the previous space. He said it was. . A small number of new employees and interns were also hired to handle the new workload.
The new space includes two living room areas, as well as a kitchen and dining room table, which Alegre hopes will allow clients to gather and encourage connection with each other. Maps of various Latin American countries and handmade tapestries decorate the walls, and posters of characters from the Disney film Inside Head hang in the youth room.
“It also gave us an opportunity to make it our own and decorate it and make sure it was welcoming and that it represented our community.” said Alegre. “That was very important to us. As you can see in this space, it doesn’t look like a traditional treatment room or clinic. And that was intentional.”
This outward expression of community reflects the nonprofit’s commitment to providing language-specific and culturally responsive services. For many of our Latino Behavioral clients, receiving care in their culturally appropriate native language makes a huge difference. Molina cited co-founder Jacqueline Gomez-Arias as an example.
“She was a survivor of five suicide attempts. She was in multiple treatment centers. She never got back on her feet until she started receiving peer support in Spanish,” Molina said. . “She was an immigrant for over 35 years in this very land of Utah, and it was only after receiving services in Spanish that she got back on her feet. Her full potential and strength are still with us. It’s giving us energy. So let’s take it seriously.” If you really want your population to thrive, think about serving them in their native language. ”
Latino Behavioral Health is accepting new patients, but currently has a waiting list of approximately two months. Alegre said this is still much shorter than the six to nine-month wait for public-sector health care providers, which can be even longer for those looking for a Spanish-speaking health care provider. Stated.
While the new facility brings a sense of accomplishment, Alegre is already looking to the future.
“I feel a sense of accomplishment and I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to do, but at the same time I’m nervous and concerned that even now with more space and more staff, we don’t have the capacity. I feel that,” he said. “Once the community knows we’re here and we’re bigger and we have more capacity, you know, we already have a waiting list. So what’s going to happen? ?”
Click here for more information about Latino Behavioral Health Services. on the website.
