From Laredo, TX to San Francisco: Aileen Terrazas’ Path to Improving Mental Health Access

National Register Associate member and Internship Travel Scholarship (ITS) winner, Aileen Terrazas’ journey to her internship has taken her from the borderlands of South Texas to the bustling streets of San Francisco, California. She is collaborating with schools in the community on providing mental health resources to immigrant children and working at an outpatient clinic providing specialty mental health care services to immigrant children and families.

The daughter of immigrant parents and growing up in Latine communities where finding Spanish-speaking providers is a challenge, she recognized the critical need for culturally informed bilingual training programs. Her work with immigrant children in shelters along the South Texas border exposed her to the numerous obstacles immigrant communities face in accessing healthcare, particularly mental health services. These experiences fueled her motivation to return to graduate school and make a difference.

“I strive to dedicate my life to advocating for children and families, and believe that all individuals despite color, nationality, sex, background, ability, or circumstance should be treated with value and integrity.”

With every transition comes some challenges and Aileen’s industrious disposition, motivation to help others, support from great supervisors at her site, and the ITS funds, raised by members like you, she is thriving in California making a positive difference on immigrant communities.

“I’ve had great supervisors at my site who have been very helpful in ensuring my transition was not difficult, and for that I am very thankful.”

After completing her degree, she hopes to continue working with minority groups to develop programs that provide linguistically and culturally appropriate services; not only to Latine populations but to all minority non-English speaking groups.

You can help empower the next generation of psychologists by donating to the Internship Travel Scholarship fund today.

Thank you for supporting the students in our community.