Living Amid Fear: Supporting the Mental Health and Wellbeing of Immigrants and Refugees

Description: 
This training addresses the psychological toll of living under constant threat for immigrants and refugees navigating hostile environments, family separation, and misinformation. Participants will gain tools for helping individuals and families manage their emotional and relational lives amid fear and uncertainty—while coping with very real danger. The program also explores community-level interventions to promote safety, connection, and resilience.
Panelists:  
Cheryl Chew, Esq., Managing Attorney at JusticeMatters
Cheryl oversees trauma-informed family law and immigration legal services through a team of eleven attorneys and paralegals. She joined JM in 2013 as the agency’s first immigration staff attorney, specializing in humanitarian immigration law to serve survivors of human trafficking and other crimes. Cheryl continues to represent clients in seeking immigration relief before the Department of Homeland Security. Over the past 12 years, Cheryl has led in the development and implementation of trauma-informed design across all areas of the organization, particularly within JM’s direct services teams. Cheryl received her B.A. from Duke University and her J.D. from the University of North Carolina School of Law.
Edith Galvan Lopez, Director of Impact & Engagement at JusticeMatters
Edith joined JM’s Client Services Team in 2020, where she leads efforts in program design, monitoring, evaluation, and community engagement to support clients, families, and staff. She began with JM as social work practicum student before joining as a Client Services Specialist. She has helped develop JM’s trauma-informed client support services and  expand access for clients with limited English proficiency and strengthen program infrastructure. She also volunteers with immigrant-serving organizations, mentors undocumented families, and serves as project coordinator for the Trauma-Informed Legal Services Program for Kinship Caregivers. Originally from Mexico, she was raised in Raleigh, NC, and holds a BSW from Meredith College and MSW from the UNC at Chapel Hill.
Elizabeth Godown, MSW, Organizational Learning & Wellness Manager at Refugee Community Partnership
At RCP, Elizabeth develops processes for collective care, language access, and organizational sustainability. She connects migrant and refugee community members to supportive networks and resources and provides crisis intervention. Her work is informed by experience as a doula, trauma educator, food justice steward with FEED Durham NC, and group facilitator. She also serves on the board of the Pro Bono Counseling Network and is a 2022 grantee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Community Research for Health Equity program. Elizabeth earned her MSW from the UNC Chapel Hill, where she contributed to a community-based participatory research project on perinatal mental health in rural North Carolina.
Maria Peralta Porras, Latinx organizer with Siembra NC in Durham County
Maria brings both personal and professional experience serving Latinx and other marginalized communities, shaped in part by her family’s experience when her stepfather was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2018. Her work reflects a deep commitment to intentional community building, social justice, and anti-racist advocacy, with past roles including the Union Scholars Program and leadership in Define American. Maria is passionate about advancing the intersection of immigrant rights and broader social issues and is seeking post-graduation employment and other enriching opportunities. She is originally from Puebla, Mexico, and is a 2020 graduate of Guilford College.
Magdalena Straub, LMFT, Therapist at El Futuro
In addition to providing bilingual (English/Spanish) direct services to individuals and families, Magdalena collaborates in La Mesita, the training and dissemination department of El Futuro that aims to reducing the gap between research and practice in Latine Mental Health. Magdalena’s clinical areas of interest include trauma-informed modalities, anxiety and OCD, systemic approaches, and common factors in therapy. She completed her undergraduate degree in psychology at Universidad Catolica de Chile and her M.S. in Couples and Family Therapy at University of Maryland, College Park.
Moderator:
Rachel Mack, LCSW Mentes Fuertes/ Strong Minds Program Manager at El Futuro
Rachel is a clinical social worker with experience supporting refugee, displaced, and vulnerable communities. She has worked in both resettlement coordination and clinical roles, providing individual support through home and office visits and developing multilingual support groups for newly arrived refugees, including Afghan and Congolese communities. Rachel began her work with displaced populations as a volunteer at a safe house for unaccompanied minor asylum-seekers. She has also supported incarcerated individuals and survivors of gender-based violence through group facilitation and program evaluation. Her work is grounded in a trauma-informed, culturally responsive approach.
Learning Objectives: 
At the end of the training participants will be able to:
Describe the psychological and relational impact of chronic fear, discrimination, and legal precarity on immigrant and refugee communities.
Identify culturally responsive, trauma-informed strategies for supporting clients navigating family separation, deportation threats, and misinformation.
Explain how misinformation and systemic threats exacerbate trauma and outline ways to share accurate, trustworthy information with clients and families.
Explore the role of legal stressors and immigration policy in shaping clients’ mental health and discuss supportive approaches for accompanying individuals and families through complex legal processes.
Apply community-level strategies that foster collective safety, connection, and empowerment in the face of systemic injustice.
Hosted by: School of Social Work
Online Location: https://sswevents.unc.edu/living-amid-fear-supporting-mental-health-and-wellbeing-immigrants-and-refugees
Additional Information can be found at: https://heellife.unc.edu/event/11987792