Social Emotional Intelligence and Youth Success
Breaking Through Barriers to Care
“Historically, Webb County has been highly neglected as far as the availability of behavioral health and substance use treatment services,” say Manuel Sanchez, co-founder of Laredo’s People with Ideas of Love, Liberty, Acceptance, and Respect (PILLAR). “Before PILLAR, if a person in Laredo needed emergency access to these services, they would have had to travel 150 miles away.”
In this article:
- To address barriers to health care in historically underserved and under-resourced Webb County, People with Ideas of Love, Liberty, Acceptance, and Respect (PILLAR), was founded in 2010.
- PILLAR now serves as a valuable behavioral health resource and certified Community Behavioral Health Center for Webb County.
- In 2021, PILLAR received a grant from the Hogg Foundation as part of the Pathways for Success for Transition-Age Youth of Color and Their Families (PST) initiative to expand programs for youth that build social emotional intelligence and resilience.
As a rural border community that is 95 percent Latino/x, Laredo has faced other barriers to care as well, often due to cultural, gendered, or spiritual beliefs. Too often, says Manuel, behavioral health needs are shrouded in stigma and shame and the value of services is downplayed.
That’s why in 2010, Manuel and PILLAR co-founder Arturo Diaz, Jr. mobilized the community to come together, identify gaps in care, and strengthen youth mental health and resilience.
“We wanted to figure out what we could do to establish an organization that would better serve people by eliminating some of these barriers to care,” says Manuel. “That’s how PILLAR came to be.”
Distance (in miles) a person living in Laredo had to travel to access emergency behavioral health care before PILLAR was founded.
Growing Capacity
Over its 13 years, PILLAR has continually expanded its services.
In addition to treatment for mental health and substance use issues, PILLAR now provides primary care services, drug testing, HIV and syphilis services, STD services, PrEP medications, and neurofeedback therapy.
“PILLAR started as an offshoot of these community mobilization efforts that led to community-wide conversations with elected officials, community leaders, people with lived experience, people within the behavioral health professional realm, and others,” says Manuel. “We all came together to create what has now become a Certified Community Behavioral Health Center.
Throughout this growth, however, behavioral health services for youth have always remained a priority. And in 2021, PILLAR received a grant from the Hogg Foundation as part of the Pathways for Success for Transition-Age Youth of Color and Their Families (PST) initiative.
Pathways for Success
In partnership with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the PST grant provided PILLAR with $54,000 to expand their existing youth services. An additional 19 BIPOC-led organizations throughout Texas also received PST grants, for a total of $1.2 million awarded.
Grantee partners were chosen based on their established histories of providing innovative, community-based, culturally relevant programs and resources for youth of color and their families as they transition into young adulthood. A central goal of the PST grants is to increase opportunities for success by strengthening youth mental health and well-being.
“PILLAR started as an offshoot of these community mobilization efforts that led to community-wide conversations with elected officials, community leaders, people with lived experience, people within the behavioral health professional realm and more. We all came together to create what has now become a Certified Community Behavioral Health Center.”
“We have a long history of funding programs that serve transition age youth (14-24 years), especially in Houston,” says Rick Ybarra, senior program officer at the Hogg Foundation. “PST was an opportunity to fund smaller to mid-sized BIPOC-led organizations in smaller communities and geographic areas that have been historically underserved. We want to help smaller BIPOC-led organizations in Texas have greater access to funding opportunities to advance their work and help create a more level playing field when it comes to awarding grants.”
The lack of mental health services has been well-documented along the Texas/Mexico border. Many border communities are federally designated Mental Health Professional Shortage Areas. (MHPSAs). Communities are evaluated and scored based on criteria such as population-to-provider ratio, percentage of population below 100 percent of the federal poverty level, and travel time to the nearest source of care outside the MHPSA. Using a scoring scale of zero to 25, higher scores indicate higher need. In 2022, Webb County received a score of 18.
“Pathways for Success for Transition Aged Youth of Color and Their Families was an opportunity to fund BIPOC-led organizations in smaller communities and geographic areas that have been historically underserved. We want to help smaller BIPOC-led organizations in Texas have greater access to funding opportunities to advance their work and help create a more level playing field when it comes to awarding grants.”
Social Emotional Intelligence
A primary area of focus for PILLAR is Social Emotional Learning (SEL) for youth.
“We want to help youth gain a better understanding of their emotional state, how to regulate their emotions so they don’t become disruptive, and how to have an appreciation for other people’s feelings and emotions as well,” Manuel says. “Through this kind of work, we’re also addressing a lot of other needs, like academic success, healthy peer relationships, and overall wellness.”
Mental Health Professional Shortage Area score for Webb County. On a scale of zero to 25, higher scores indicate higher need.
PILLAR helps build social emotional intelligence by providing individual or group outpatient counseling with a Licensed Professional Counselor, psycho-educational information resources, and/or psychiatric care and medication prescriptions. These resources also help youth build self-awareness and engage in constructive feedback.
“We facilitate a lot of interactive activities. We assign ‘homework’ in counseling seesions,” says Manuel. “Youth put forth a lot of effort on their end.”
He’s encouraged by the commitment he sees.
“One of the messages youth hear from PILLAR from the very beginning is, ‘You’re going to encounter challenges, But you have control over your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors,’” says Manuel. “’If you use the tools we’re helping you build to circumvent these challenges as best you can, they don’t have to get in the way of you achieving success.’”
And it’s that message, “challenges can be overcome,” that speaks to the heart of the PILLAR approach. It’s one that offers the best of both worlds: getting real with youth about what they’re up against while at the same time insisting that a better tomorrow is within their reach.
“We want to help youth gain a better understanding of their emotional state, how to regulate their emotions so they don’t become disruptive, and how to have an appreciation for other people’s feelings and emotions as well.”