Please join us for a webinar exploring immigrant infant and early childhood mental health co-presented by Dr. Carmen Rosa Noroña LICSW, MS.Ed., IECMH-E®, and Ivys Fernandez, JD, from the Center for Excellence in Immigrant IECMH.

Anti-immigration ideology and nativism have permeated all corners of political and media discourse in the United States, making the socio-political climate the most hostile towards immigrant communities in modern history. The impact of displacement and the fear and effects of deportation are multifaceted, multi-generational, systematic, and detrimental to the mental health and well-being of young children in immigrant families and communities regardless of immigration status. With increasing numbers of families forcibly displaced from Latin America and the Global South, it is urgent, timely, and essential for early childhood providers to understand the unique needs of caring for newly arrived families and their young children.

Presenters will provide a brief overview of immigration statuses and the relationship between immigration policies and systems of oppression for particular immigrant groups who have been historically and currently targeted, including Latin Americans. They will also discuss the historical, socio-economic-political context forcing families to leave their home countries and the implications of pre-, during, and post-migration traumatic stressors. The webinar will highlight the traumatic nature of threats of separation, forcible separation, and the compounding effects of systemic oppression on the development and well-being of very young children.

The second part of the webinar will focus on an approach to creating healing and therapeutic environments for immigrant families and preventing re-traumatization. Presenters will introduce the “Family Preparedness Plan,” a developmentally, trauma and diversity-informed tool, to support and empower immigrant families addressing fears of separation related to immigration policy.

Participants of this webinar will be able to: 

• Analyze the intersection of immigration policy and systems of oppression and critically consider the historical, socio-economic-political context forcing families to leave their home countries as well as our role in perpetuating systems of oppression
• Describe the implications of pre-, during, and post-immigration traumatic stressors
• Describe the long- and short-term effects (cognitive, socio-emotional, psychological, relational) effects of immigration policies that cause threats of separation or forcible separation on young children and their parents/caregivers.
• Describe and use the “Family Preparedness Plan,” an interdisciplinary, developmentally-, trauma- and diversity-informed tool that aims to increase safety, affect regulation, empowerment, and hope in immigrant families.

This webinar is for all of those working in the perinatal period as well as children birth to 5 and their families.

Date & Time

Wednesday, October 23rd,  2024

10:30 am - 12:00 pm EST