The Restorative Circles project is a community based intervention to mitigate psychological trauma and mental health disparities in immigrant communities in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Restorative Circles
Behind the Project
For this project we are focusing our efforts on the community of the Eastern Coachella Valley because it is a community made up of predominantly Spanish speaking Latino immigrants. Many community members face barriers that prevent them from receiving mental health services. These barriers include but are not limited to lack of health insurance, financial restrictions, no transportation and lack of accessible resources.
Additionally within the Latino community there is a strong prevalence of social stigma surrounding mental health that makes accessing mental health resources more difficult. For these reasons this project aims to address community mental health needs in a more accessible way. We focused our efforts on three specific communities within the Coachella Valley, the Purépecha community, the Agricultural Community, and the Relocated Community. So far we have hosted 9 restorative circles sessions in which members of the community were invited to attend and discuss their mental health in a safe and intimate setting via zoom.
In total our restorative circles reached 110 community members. Additionally we hosted 3 virtual focus groups in which 34 previous attendees of the restorative circles were invited to reflect on their experience in the restorative circles and share suggestions for future efforts
Co-investigator: Ann Cheney, PhD
Program Coordinator: Arianna Zimmer, BA, BS
Principle Investigator: Evelyn Vázquez, PhD
Community Investigator: Maria Pozar
Las Promotoras: Ana Gonzalez, Mary Bautista, Sonia Rodriguez, Yesenia Pozar
What We’re Doing Now
During our focus groups we had several suggestions from the community that they would like continued resources through an accessible platform. Community members as well as Promotoras suggested doing Facebook Live sessions that covered the most frequently brought up topics. So far we have done two Facebook live talks and one in person talk. In the month of January our first talk was on adolescent mental health. Our guest speakers were Lucero Fabela from Latino Commission, Mayra Barragan-O’Brien from Undocumentalhealth and Lucio Vazquez from Tesoro Club. This talk covered resources for undocumented Latinos, bullying, school violence and strategies for parents to communicate with their children about mental health. In February our second talk discussed substance abuse in the Latino community. Our guest speakers were Shaili Patel, 4th year UCI medical student, Marisol Torres, Director and Educator for UCR’S
Facilitating dialogue around mental health
The Well and Dinery Egan UCR SOM Behavioral Health Therapist. In this talk we covered substance use, prevention and the connection between substance abuse and mental health. Our third talk took place in person at the Coachella Valley Free Clinic. In honor of women’s history month our third talk was about women’s emotional wellness. Our guest speaker for this talk was Muriel Casamayor, founder of Insight Family Counseling & Wellness Services and psychotherapist. In this talk she discussed domestic violence and the different types of abuse women may face in their homes. All talk topics were carefully chosen by our team of Promotoras who strive to amplify the voices of the community and provide resources based on need.
Community Reports
Improving Mental Health in the Eastern Coachella Valley
Report [English]
Reporte [Español]