A class where children learn to make chocolate while building a sense of community; a poetry workshop where migrants write and recite their stories of migration; and a wellness event where immigrant women youth explore different self-care stations like massage, affirmations and nail painting. These are some of the workshops implemented by local Brooklyn nonprofits Mixteca, RaisingHealth, and Brave House, which have introduced culturally tailored workshops to raise awareness about mental health within immigrant communities.
These organizations say that these workshops have helped combat the stigma surrounding mental health while addressing the lack of resources in communities where accessing mental health services is challenging. Data collected by these organizations show that demand for the programs has increased with the arrival of more than 200,000 migrants in NYC since the spring of 2022, further emphasizing the need for culturally sensitive services to raise awareness about mental health.
Lorena Kourousias, executive director of Mixteca, a nonprofit helping migrant communities in Sunset Park for decades, has seen firsthand the challenges that prevent migrants from accessing mental health services. At Mixteca, she said, many come asking for legal assistance, help enrolling in health insurance, IDNYC, and Fair Fares MetroCards while also requesting food, clothes, and diapers. The last thing on their mind is their mental health, she told Documented.
In 2023, Mixteca released a survey highlighting the need for mental health services in the immigrant community, which has been compounded by the population’s immediate needs for food, clothing and shelter. Mixteca’s mental health and wellness workshops have seen an increase in attendance in the past two years, Kourousias said, since the arrival of more than 200,000 asylum seekers to New York City. She said that Mixteca now has four full-time social workers, as opposed to one social worker part time in the past.
Similarly, the Brave House, a nonprofit in Brooklyn supporting immigrant women and gender-expansive youth in NYC, has also had success in making mental health more approachable in the communities they serve.
Mabel Smith, director of development and operations at the Brave House, said that during a recent event, called “Wellness Wonderland,” their community members were given the opportunity to experience different self-care stations like massages, affirmations, and nail painting, among others — all of which are assisted by team members who are bilingual in English and Spanish. “It is important first and foremost that services are offered not only in a setting that is warm and friendly but also in a language that is accessible for members,” Smith said.
The World Health Organization has documented that refugees and migrants face different risks and needs for support when it comes to mental health, but there is still much to learn about this population. The WHO report “Mental Health of Refugees and Migrants: Risk and Protective Factors and Access to Care” states that the organization has limited data on how migration impacts the lives of other groups: older migrants, LGBTQI+, and internal labor migrants and affirms the need for more detailed, long-term research.
One of the challenges that migrants, particularly those with irregular status or who have recently arrived, face is the lack of health insurance. The average cost for a mental health session without health insurance ranges anywhere from $100 to $200 in the United States. “It’s much harder to receive mental health care without insurance or especially for lower-income people,” Grace Aaronson, capacity-building coordinator at Raising Health, said.
To combat the barriers to entering mental health services, Aaronson said that they have hosted no-cost workshops to spread the word about mental health while helping to destigmatize it. One example is a workshop that helps recently arrived migrants write and draw while practicing stress management techniques, like breathing exercises, working with plants, and other creative ways to release stress. “All while we are having conversations with the community throughout the workshop,” she said.
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