LAYC COVID-19 October Update

With your support, our dedicated Social Services team at Latin American Youth Center (LAYC) continues to help our community weather the challenges of COVID-19 and remain optimistic about their post-pandemic future. Since mid-March, 274 youth have received counseling and case management services through LAYC’s Social Services department, including 109 youth who were newly enrolled during the pandemic. Our clinicians have provided 1,756 counseling sessions and 683 case management sessions using telehealth video and phone sessions.

Each of these touchpoints represents the life of a youth fighting the isolation, stress, and uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic or other mental health challenges.

With LAYC staff encouragement, each youth learns to make choices and decisions to improve their well-being and continue down a path toward a healthy future.

Oliver’s Story

When the pandemic hit, 16-year old Oliver was receiving services from LAYC’s Community Based Intervention (CBI) program while recovering from a gunshot wound. Through CBI, Oliver was working through personal challenges and difficult relationships with peers and family. Due to the pandemic, Oliver’s family faced additional challenges during this troubling time.

The CBI program provides short-term, intensive mental health services to youth and their families. This year, Oliver’s CBI worker supported him and his family when his parents contracted COVID-19 and were unable to work for several weeks. LAYC first assisted with basic needs, linking Oliver’s family to grocery deliveries and rental assistance through our new COVID-19 relief programs. In addition, the CBI worker provided intensive mental health support virtually, providing emotional support and encouragement to Oliver and his mother and responding to late-night and weekend calls when the family was feeling overwhelmed. The CBI worker also empowered Oliver to identify his personal goals and facilitated team meetings with Oliver’s probation officer, educational attorney, and medical team to help him move forward.

With your support, our dedicated Social Services team at Latin American Youth Center (LAYC) continues to help our community weather the challenges of COVID-19 and remain optimistic about their post-pandemic future. Since mid-March, 274 youth have received counseling and case management services through LAYC’s Social Services department, including 109 youth who were newly enrolled during the pandemic. Our clinicians have provided 1,756 counseling sessions and 683 case management sessions using telehealth video and phone sessions.

Each of these touchpoints represents the life of a youth fighting the isolation, stress, and uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic or other mental health challenges.

With LAYC staff encouragement, each youth learns to make choices and decisions to improve their well-being and continue down a path toward a healthy future.

Oliver’s Story

When the pandemic hit, 16-year old Oliver was receiving services from LAYC’s Community Based Intervention (CBI) program while recovering from a gunshot wound. Through CBI, Oliver was working through personal challenges and difficult relationships with peers and family. Due to the pandemic, Oliver’s family faced additional challenges during this troubling time.

The CBI program provides short-term, intensive mental health services to youth and their families. This year, Oliver’s CBI worker supported him and his family when his parents contracted COVID-19 and were unable to work for several weeks. LAYC first assisted with basic needs, linking Oliver’s family to grocery deliveries and rental assistance through our new COVID-19 relief programs. In addition, the CBI worker provided intensive mental health support virtually, providing emotional support and encouragement to Oliver and his mother and responding to late-night and weekend calls when the family was feeling overwhelmed. The CBI worker also empowered Oliver to identify his personal goals and facilitated team meetings with Oliver’s probation officer, educational attorney, and medical team to help him move forward.

As the pandemic continues to impact our communities, mental health challenges and the demand for counseling and other treatment continues to increase.

The pandemic has amplified racial and ethnic disparities that limit access to physical and behavioral health care,* a significant concern for LAYC youth, the majority of whom belong to communities of color. Not only are our Black and Latino communities at increased risk of serious illness if they contract COVID-19 due to financial and social inequities,** they have significantly lower access to mental health and substance use treatment and are less likely to experience culturally-responsive care. When service providers are unable to provide adequate care, particularly in meaningfully addressing the intersections between clients’ personal experiences and their mental health needs, their clients are more likely to terminate treatment prematurely.

Positive outcomes for families like Oliver’s are made possible by culturally competent first responders like LAYC’s Social Services staff.

Like you, LAYC believes that our families deserve to be treated in a humane and a dignified manner. There is no doubt that the challenges faced by our youth and their families are overwhelming.

I do not take for granted your financial support that makes our work possible. I am reminded, and I hope you are as well, of the power of being there for our youth and making a life-changing difference, as we witness in Oliver’s story.

Mirna Quinteros-Grady,
President & CEO

* Source: SAMHSA 2020

** Factors contributing to COVID-19 risks include a greater likelihood of the following: underlying health conditions, being uninsured and facing other barriers to accessing health care compared to Whites, working in jobs that increase exposure to COVID-19, working in industries negatively affected by the pandemic, and living in housing situations that make it difficult to social distance or self-isolate (Kaiser Foundation 2020).