While our Economic Empowerment Program contributes to reinforcing the working-age adults’ economic capital by providing them with opportunities to gain access to decent employment opportunities, and our Early Childhood Education Program contributes to boosting parents’ social capital by providing spaces that allow mothers to interact with each other, we also offer specialized workshops for parents focusing on parenting strategies to foster emotional resilience and healing. These sessions are informed by the specific needs of parents, identified in collaboration with our child education facilitators, who are all trained as Community Health Workers in our Education Program.

For the delivery of these sessions, we are working with qualified service providers, such as the Ibn Sina Foundation (ISF) and its team of seven licensed and board-certified mental health clinicians. Also, through our memorandum of understanding with ISF, we ensure that our staff are trained in trauma-informed abuse and reporting protocols and have access to resources to help families navigate domestic violence situations. In addition, our staff assists families in accessing more specialized behavioral health services by referring them to local partners, such as DAYA and AN-NISA.

To continue to improve its programmatic approach, we have launched in 2024 a Mental Health Task Force. By bringing a group of experts from different medical fields, we will (I) analyze existent gaps in current health and behavioral services and support systems for financially challenged individuals/families or immigrants with Fort Bend and Harris Counties and (II) identify transdisciplinary pathways to address these gaps. This work is on an age group approach, from the prenatal stage to old age.

The Way Forward

1. Continue to develop its behavioral health program targeting mothers, fathers, and children, using the Wellness Framework from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration as a guide. Specifically, we will continue to invest in strengthening our staff’s capacity to screen clients for mental health conditions and use these findings to provide referral support. Building on the trust we have established with leaders from migrants and refugee communities through the years, we will expand our partnerships with behavioral health providers in Houston to offer community awareness sessions for parents, expecting mothers and fathers, and school-age children. Leveraging our organizational focus on education, these sessions will be delivered using a psycho-education format that is age-appropriate and family-centered. We will seek to include parenting tool kits to empower and equip parents to meet their children’s unique needs and social-emotional training for children through interactive social activities, art, and guided play. Additionally, family-centered activities will include games designed to promote social-emotional learning, helping families navigate life transitions, and pro-social skills training for the family focusing on mothers. To reinforce our messages among these target groups, we will also strengthen the use of social media and other complementary communication tools.

2. Collaborate with community leaders, including religious leaders, to overcome cultural, ethnic, and social barriers to behavioral health education. These interventions will also be integrated into all our future School Preparedness and economic empowerment initiatives.