Through our activities and services, we aim to help participants navigate their everyday lives and immediate mental health challenges, as well as to develop the skills necessary to cope with these challenges and live a healthy and balanced life. Our program’s long-term vision includes:
- Systems change
One of the long-term purposes of our program is to eliminate the structural barriers that often prevent people from accessing and receiving the services they need. The following are some of the aims of our program in this regard:- Create policies and systems that recognize cultural practices and traditional healing practices as valid forms for prevention, early intervention, and treatment.
- Create systems of care that emphasize prevention and early intervention in the community through reallocation of resources, space, and time in preventive efforts.
- Integrate health equity into the design of every system of care as one of their core components.
- Recognize and dismantle white supremacy and other ideologies of superiority that have played a large role in creating and perpetuating many of the health disparities that our communities suffer.
- Foster collaboration and increase capacity of other organizations who serve the same communities.
- Build capacity of organizations and community leaders to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate/competent/affirming care
- Collective and individual liberation
We envision a Latinx, immigrant and otherwise community free of the weight of stigma and able to embrace those who are different in a loving and accepting way. We dream of the day when our communities will have the knowledge, skills and the validation and recognition of our cultural practices as valid forms of healing. A day when we will not have to compromise our values, history, culture, and dignity to accommodate to a system that continues to reject our traditional values and knowledge to heal ourselves. - Social justice and equity
We envision increased access and reduced overall disparities in mental health treatment for Latinx and Indigenous communities in Alameda and elsewhere. A time when prevention and early intervention receive sufficient and ongoing support and resources to make sure our communities have the services, spaces, and programs to support wellness and to identify and support those struggling with their mental health. - Normalization of mental health
We envision a time when participants and community have an increased knowledge and understanding of mental health signs and symptoms and when stigma no longer prevents them from receiving mental health care services when and where they need them. We hope that our program contributes to making conversations about mental health and wellness common place in our communities.
Wellness and Healing
Our program aims to bring about wellness and healing to our clients and communities by increasing participants’ knowledge and skills to manage mental health signs and symptoms and increasing individual, family, and community resiliency. Our program proposes a change of paradigm in the more conventional approaches to mental health prevention and early intervention, as our services and activities go beyond psychological interventions for healing and recovery and instead, they seek to support participants in their journey to become self-reliant and to live a more fulfilled lives.