Crossroads: The Psychology of Immigration in the New Century

Comprehensive Community-Based Services
To ensure positive outcomes for the client, clinicians must
find ways to collaborate with the various contexts/systems
that are a part of the client’s life, thereby validating and
empowering the client. In line with systems of care models
(Casas, Pavelski, Furlong, & Zanglis, 2001), an outcome of
such collaboration is the establishment of comprehensive
community-based services that provide mental health,
social, legal, and educational assistance and are located in
settings where the target immigrant population is likely to
be found (e.g., schools, churches, and community centers)
(Birman et al., 2008; Hernandez et al., 2007). These services
offer an alternative to clinic-based services (Birman et al.,
2008). From a contextualist perspective, comprehensive
community-based services are critical because they address
the larger context of immigrants’ lives. For them, therapy
in a clinical setting is but one component of the overall
treatment model.
Educational settings,
including public, parochial,
and community colleges,
have been identified as
effective sites from which
to provide diverse mental
health services to immigrant
children and their families
(Ehntholt, Smith, & Yule,
2005; Fazel, Doll, & Stein, 2009; Kataoka et al., 2003;
O’Shea, Hodes, Down, & Bramley, 2000; Rousseau,
Drapeau, Lacroix, Bagilishya, & Heusch, 2005; Rousseau
et al., 2007; Stein et al., 2003). Educational sites are effective
sites from which to reach adults, families, and their children
because services (like ESL classes) are often already in
place, helping to facilitate ready bonds of trust within
the community (Kataoka et al., 2003). Further, schools
are frequently spaces in which familial acculturative and
adjustment struggles unfold (Birman et al., 2007).
One example of an effective intervention is Cultural
Adjustment and Trauma Services (CATS), a schoolbased
mental health program for immigrant children and
adolescents (Beehler et al., 2011). This program provides
a range of clinical and case management/support services
to students and families (e.g., food pantries, job placement,
afterschool support groups, and guidance regarding class
schedules and college admissions), their teachers (e.g.,
consultation on classroom practices, assistance in academic
Immigrant Populations in Clinical Contexts
Educational settings, including public,
parochial, and community colleges, have
been identified as effective sites from which
to provide diverse mental health services
to immigrant children and their families.
placement decisions, and phone calls with parents in
their native language), and administrators and staff (e.g.,
orientation to immigrant students’ cultures and translation
services). The intent of this program is to intervene to
prevent relatively simple adjustment problems from
progressing to more serious psychological difficulties.
By attending to mental health concerns, such services can
reduce barriers to learning (Adelman & Taylor, 1999).
Mandatory school attendance ensures access to a broad
range of children, creating opportunities for screening
and early intervention (Birman & Chan, 2008). Stigma
surrounding mental health services can be reduced when
provided as an educationally connected intervention in
a safe, familiar setting, and schools have natural access to
families who may be reluctant to seek mental health services
for their children in more traditional settings. There is
evidence that when varied services are provided together,
there is an increase in the use
of mental health services.
Social Justice Perspective
The social justice perspective
in psychological treatment
is rooted in the belief that
all people have a right to
equitable treatment and a
fair allocation of societal
resources, including decision making (Crethar, Torres Rivera,
& Nash, 2008). Psychologists committed to a social justice
perspective must work toward making society a better place
for all by challenging systemic inequalities (Corey, Corey,
& Callanan, 2011). The social justice framework requires
a paradigm shift in the way psychologists, counselors, and
other service providers perceive the therapeutic process
(Herlihy & Watson, 2007).
Counseling or psychotherapy may not necessarily be a oneon-one,
in-office encounter, nor do the client’s presenting
problems necessarily originate within the self. To this end,
Atkinson (2004; Atkinson, Thompson, & Grant, 1993)
suggested that in the process of selecting roles and strategies
when working with racial/ethnic minority and immigrant
clients, counselors need to take into consideration three
factors, each of which exists along a continuum: (a) client
level of acculturation to the dominant society (high to
low), (b) locus of problem solving (external to internal),
and (c) goals of helping (prevention, including education/
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