Latinx Families Research Articles

The longitudinal links between parenting stress, harsh parenting, and adolescents’ social behaviors in Latinx families.

The longitudinal links between parenting stress, harsh parenting, and adolescents’ social behaviors in Latinx families.

Culturally Relevant Parenting Approaches Among African American and Latinx Children and Families: Toward Resilient, Strengths-Based, Trauma-Informed Practices

Children and families of color in the United States (U.S.) have long had to battle to develop a positive identity in the face of discrimination based upon race, ethnicity, immigration status, and gender. Historically, racial-ethnic minorities have experienced various types of trauma exposures in the U.S., including enslavement, family separation, deportation, colonization, discrimination, ridicule, and stereotyping that permeate U.S. society. Yet, they still have managed within their families to advance some sense of shared within-group identities, values, beliefs, and practices that have fostered child and family development. This paper focuses on the experiences of African American and Latinx families who, though distinct in historical and cultural experiences, have some similarities in social disparities that should inform parenting programs. Prevention and intervention that seeks to engage families of color should be sensitive to centuries of racism and structural inequalities that have contributed to their unique socio-cultural contexts (Bernal et al., 2009; Spencer et al., 1997).We first explore the historical context of racial-ethnic trauma among children of color in the U.S. Second, we build upon the work in traumatic stress as a rationale for examining culturally relevant and responsive adaptations that address linguistics, worldviews, and contexts, describing the ways in which these concepts are evidenced in programming and effects upon family processes, and youth socio-emotional development. We discuss the implications for multi-group intervention, homogenous and heterogeneous group composition, underscoring the value of critical frameworks attuned to psychological trauma that draw upon a strengths-based perspective of culture for African American and Latinx children and families.

Goal Setting with Latinx Families of Children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: Case Studies.

Behavioral community psychology focuses on studying issues that matter to communities, unpacking contextual factors that impact people’s behaviors, and identifying strategies to address such issues. Goal setting is one such strategy often used by behavioral psychologists. Grounded in the values of behavioral community psychology and a behavior analysis paradigm, this study illustrated two case studies of Latinx parents of children with disabilities where goal-setting strategies were implemented to promote behavior change. The first case study focused on the promotion of healthy lifestyle behaviors and routines among Latinx families of children with disabilities in the United States. The second case study examined goal setting related to youth development by parents of adolescents with disabilities in Colombia. In both cases, participants received training on goal setting and had opportunities to discuss progress toward achieving their goals, share action steps taken, and discuss the contextual challenges or barriers that they experienced. The results indicate that behavioral goal-setting procedures can be effective in helping parents attain their goals and brainstorm strategies for addressing behavioral and contextual challenges. Implications for future research advancing behavioral community psychology are discussed.

Belonging on Rounds: Translating Research Into Inclusive Practices for Families With Limited English Proficiency to Promote Safety, Equity, and Quality.

Belonging on Rounds: Translating Research Into Inclusive Practices for Families With Limited English Proficiency to Promote Safety, Equity, and Quality.

Barriers and Facilitators to Prevention and Care of COVID-19 Infection in Cincinnati Latinx Families: a Community-Based Convergent Mixed Methods Study.

BackgroundLatinx populations have experienced disproportionately high case rates of COVID-19 across the USA. Latinx communities in non-traditional migration areas may experience greater baseline day-to-day challenges such as a lack of resources for immigrants and insufficient language services. These challenges may be exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.ObjectiveThis article describes the results of an initial community health needs assessment to better understand the prevention and care of COVID-19 infection in the Cincinnati Latinx community.MethodsWe used convergent mixed methods to examine barriers and facilitators to COVID-19 prevention and care for those with infection.ResultsLatinx adults ≥ 18 years old completed 255 quantitative surveys and 17 qualitative interviews. Overarching mixed methods domains included knowledge, prevention, work, challenges, and treatment. Quantitative results largely reinforced qualitative results (confirmation). Certain quantitative and qualitative results, however, diverged and expanded insights related to caring for COVID-19 infection among Latinx adults (expansion). There were infrequent contradictions between quantitative and qualitative findings (discordance). Primary barriers for the Latinx community during the COVID-19 pandemic included insecurities in food, jobs, housing, and immigration. Key facilitators included having trusted messengers of health-related information.ConclusionPublic health interventions should be centered on community partnerships and the use of trusted messengers. Wraparound services (including resources for immigrants) are essential public health services. Close partnership with employers is essential as lack of sick leave and mask supplies were more frequent barriers than knowledge. These findings emerged from experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic but likely generalize to future public health crises.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40615-022-01294-7.

An Unintended Abolition

In a typical year, New York City’s vast family regulation system, fueled by an army of mandated reporters, investigates tens of thousands of reports of child neglect and abuse, policing almost exclusively poor Black and Latinx families even as the government provides those families extremely limited support. When the City shut down in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, this system shrunk in almost every conceivable way as mandated reporters retreated, caseworkers adopted less intrusive investigatory tactics, and family courts constrained their operations. Reports fell, the number of cases filed in court fell, and the number of children separated from their parents fell. At the same time, families found support elsewhere, through suddenly burgeoning mutual aid networks and infusions of new government entitlements. This large-scale reconfiguration of the family regulation system represents a short-term experiment in abolition: in this period, New Yorkers moved away from a system that oppressed poor Black and Latinx people and not only envisioned but built a more democratic and humane model to protect families.
 As this Article demonstrates, under this new model, families remained just as safe. Data from the courts and from the city’s Administration for Children’s Services reveal that there was no rise in child neglect or abuse during the shutdown period. Furthermore, once the City began to re-open, there was no perceivable “rebound effect,” i.e. a delayed, compensatory rise in reports. This Article positions the COVID-19 shutdown period as a successful case study, demonstrating one possible future absent the massive, oppressive apparatus of the family regulation system.

Emergence of ethnic-racial socialization for African American and Latinx families: Evidence for factorial validity and measurement invariance across early childhood.

This measurement validity study assesses the Hughes and Chen (1997) Multidimensional Scale of Race Socialization in an early childhood sample to examine when ethnic-racial socialization (ERS) strategies emerge and the degree to which they are employed with young children. We administered the Multidimensional Scale among a sample of 407 African American and Latinx families. Data were collected across four waves (child ages 2.5-7.5 years). Longitudinal, multigroup confirmatory factor analyses were modeled to test (a) factorial validity of the extant measure in a novel group, (b) equivalence of measuring ERS across age, gender, and ethnicity, and (c) latent means across the sample. The two-factor model was validated in this early childhood sample and measured invariantly across all waves and groups. Latent means of cultural socialization and preparation for bias steadily increased across early childhood with noteworthy differences in effect sizes (.58-.75, respectively) between the second and third assessments when the majority of children entered kindergarten. Latent means did not differ for caregivers on account of child gender. African American caregivers reported greater messaging of cultural socialization (ES range: .44-1.55) than Latinx caregivers, and also reported greater preparation for bias than their Latinx peers but only at school entry (ES = .66). This study provides evidence that ERS strategies commonly used with older children emerge very early on in family experiences and supports the notion that the transition to kindergarten marks a notable ecological shift for ethnic minority children. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Understanding the Barriers to Receiving Autism Diagnoses for Hispanic and Latinx Families.

Significant disparities exist in early identification of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) for Hispanic and Latinx children. ASD prevalence estimates are approximately identical for White and Black children but lower for Hispanic and Latinx children. Reasons for these racial and ethnic variations are likely multifactorial. This review sought to understand previously described barriers and limitations to accessing ASD diagnostic services in the Latinx and Hispanic communities. Three main categories of existing barriers were identified: (1) parent/family, (2) community, and (3) systemic. These barriers are complex and multifactorial in nature, including circumstantial limitations such as limited English proficiency, noncitizenship, and low-income status. These can limit health care access, and can lead to family and community cultural barriers, poor knowledge about ASD, and social stigma related to disabilities. Understanding and mitigating barriers is essential to reduce disparities to ASD diagnosis in the Hispanic and Latinx community. [Pediatr Ann. 2022;51(4):e167-e171.].

Transition Planning: Knowledge and Preferences of Latinx Families of Youth With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.

Due to systemic barriers, Latinx parents of youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) report having limited involvement in transition planning. To facilitate parent involvement in transition planning, it is critical to solicit feedback from Latinx families to inform the content and mode of a transition planning intervention. The purpose of this study was to explore Latinx parents' knowledge and preferred mode for a transition planning intervention. Twenty-eight Latinx parents of transition-aged youth with IDD completed surveys and focus groups. Participants reported wanting an intervention to focus on school-based transition planning and adult services; to a lesser extent, participants wanted information about natural supports. Regarding modality, participants desired in-person or online training (versus a brochure). Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Pláticas con Maestros: Understanding the Experiences of Latinx Teachers in the New Latino South

ABSTRACT Drawing on pláticas held between preservice and in-service teachers, this study explores the experiences of Latinx teachers teaching in the New Latino South. The researchers illustrate how teachers navigate teaching in schools where they were oftentimes the only Latinx teacher. For this study, we used Latino Critical Race Theory paired with pláticas to analyze the stories that the participants shared. Findings from this study indicate that teachers in the New Latino South resisted traditional teacher roles by willingly taking on additional roles that supported Latinx families. Findings also indicate that teachers navigated spaces in which they often experienced different forms of racism. The article concluded with implications for recruiting and retaining Latinx teachers as well as implications for how schools can better support Latinx families.

Applying the family stress model to parental acculturative stress and Latinx youth adjustment: A review of the literature

AbstractThe unique challenges and stressors that occur during acculturation, which are often referred to as acculturative stress (AS), have been associated with psychosocial and health challenges that influence parents, youth, and family functioning. Less is known about the role of parental acculturative stress (PAS) and its association to youth adjustment in Latinx families. Highlighting the role of stress in family mechanisms and youth adjustment, the family stress model (FSM) is increasingly used to inform research that explores the association between PAS and youth adjustment in Latinx families. However, integration of its key components is limited in existing work. This article seeks to critically review and integrate research on PAS and Latinx immigrant‐origin youth outcomes by situating the literature within the FSM framework. Findings are analyzed through the FSM lens to identify future directions for research.

Selling and resisting English-medium schooling on Milwaukee’s multilingual Near South Side: A typology of choice schools’ marketing strategies

Extant research has emphasized the importance of information to help families of English learner-identified children to navigate school choice structures, and raised critical questions about the information that is made available through school marketing. At a time of increasing tension around school choice and the rapid expansion of certain forms of bilingual education, we argue for the importance of documenting language minoritized parents’ experiential knowledge as one means of combating choice-based exclusion. Drawing from theories of racial capitalism, language ideologies, and language policy, we analyze charter and voucher school websites and interview data from a nine-month critical bifocal ethnography on the intersections and tensions between bilingual education and school choice policy in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Our findings identify six marketing strategies that choice schools employed on Milwaukee’s Near South Side, a place with high concentrations of Spanish-speaking, low-income Latinx families. We also present one working-class Mexican father’s narrative of choosing a school for his child as an example of the ways in which parents actively resist the racializing logics embedded within choice-based, marketized school systems. The article provides policy agents with a typology to help generate additional, place-specific analyses of the marketization of language education in multilingual communities.

Acculturation, parenting stress, and children's problem behaviours among immigrant Latinx mothers and fathers.

The Latinx population in the United States has been growing steadily over the last few decades, necessitating the need to better understand the impact of stress and acculturation on Latinx parents and children to provide more targeted community supports. This study examines how parenting stress, within the context of acculturation, is associated with children's internalizing and externalizing behaviours among newly immigrated Latinx families (n = 129). Correlational analyses were used to understand the relationship between acculturation, parenting stress for mothers and fathers, and children's behaviour problems. Regression analyses were used to predict children's behaviours when accounting for acculturation and parenting stress. Results indicated that parent acculturation was not associated with child problem behaviours for mothers or fathers. Maternal parenting stress was associated with child internalizing and externalizing behaviour problems, while paternal parenting stress was associated with child externalizing problems only. Implications and future directions for this research are discussed.

Incorporating Photovoice Into a Community-Based Intervention With Latinx Families

Photovoice is a qualitative community-based participatory research (CBPR) method used by researchers and communities to inform policy and advocate for community change. Photovoice was piloted within an established community-based intervention, Your Family, Your Neighborhood (YFYN), within a predominantly Latinx community. YFYN is a dual-generation, evidence-based, manualized curriculum supporting and strengthening bonds between parents and their children while fostering neighborhood social cohesion among families living in low-income communities. The photovoice project was conducted with five families (n=20 participants) in English and Spanish. Participants guided the photovoice process to uncover complex community issues from their direct perspectives to accurately capture the challenges and strengths they encounter in their community. Community challenges identified by participants included the dumping of trash in their neighborhood, inadequate space for their children to play, and heavy traffic that impedes their ability to walk their children to school safely. Participants identified three main community strengths: the local park, the Boys & Girls Club, and personal connections with other YFYN family participants. When participants guide the photovoice process, it helps stakeholders understand and uncover complex issues from community members’ direct perspectives to capture the meaning of the issues accurately. Production of knowledge from the community rooted in their lived experience can help reshape the narrative of Latinx families living in low-income communities and allows for social workers to more adequately respond to their specific needs.

“Everyone in Our Community Should be Informed About the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine”: Latinx Mothers’ Suggested Strategies to Promote the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine

Purpose Parents play a critical decision-making role in vaccinating their children against human papillomavirus (HPV), and mothers, in particular, are key stakeholders as they are often the parent taking their children to healthcare visits. Given the importance of the HPV vaccination as a cancer prevention strategy, this study was designed to explore Latinx mothers’ suggested strategies to promote vaccine uptake among Latinx parents. Setting and Participants Community-based in Massachusetts, United States, and Latinx mothers. Design and Methods Descriptive qualitative research employing individual semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed using a hybrid method of thematic analysis incorporating deductive and inductive approaches. Results Twenty-two, majority foreign-born (91%) Latinx mothers of adolescent girls (∼60%) and boys (∼40%) aged 11–19 years participated. Mothers suggested several strategies to promote uptake of the HPV vaccine among Latinx families including healthcare providers’ increased communication and anticipatory guidance addressing factors influencing parents’ HPV vaccination hesitancy, and improved community-wide dissemination of culturally and linguistically relevant information targeting not only parents of age-eligible participants but the broader community. Finally, mothers suggested the use of social media using personal narratives and an enhanced active role of schools in providing accurate information to raise awareness and educate adolescents and parents about the importance of HPV vaccination. Conclusion Findings are relevant to the development of tailored interventions to meet the needs of Latinx populations, and ultimately increase Latinx children’s HPV vaccination rates.

Latinx adolescents’ school-related science conversations with family members: Associations with adolescents’ science expectancy-value beliefs in high school

Integrating situated expectancy-value and family systems theories, the current study tested the extent to which Latinx adolescents’ 9th-grade school-related science conversations with parents and older siblings/cousins positively predicted their 10th-grade science ability self-concepts and task values. We also tested whether these links were moderated by who primarily initiated the conversations (i.e., adolescents, family members, or both). We used two-wave, multi-reporter survey data from 104 Latinx families, consisting of triads of parents, older siblings/cousins, and adolescents (89% Mexican-descent, 40% female; M age = 14.53 years). Partially supporting our hypotheses, parent-adolescent school-related science conversations predicted adolescents’ 10th-grade science ability self-concepts. Moreover, the links between parent-adolescent conversations and science ability self-concepts and task values were positive and significant when parents more frequently initiated conversations than adolescents. Similar but weaker associations were found for sibling/cousin-adolescent school-related science conversations. These findings underscore the motivational benefits of family members initiating school-related science conversations with Latinx adolescents.

Perceived and Observed Treatment Gains Following PEERS: A Preliminary Study with Latinx Adolescents with ASD

The Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS) social skills intervention has demonstrated effectiveness for adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, studies have been limited by a lack of objective outcome measures and an underrepresentation of Latinx families. This pilot study extends the PEERS literature by utilizing an observational measure of conversational skills (Contextual Assessment of Social Skills; CASS) with a diverse sample of 13 adolescents with ASD (with parent groups conducted in English and Spanish simultaneously) and a control group of 11 neurotypical adolescents. Consistent with previous research, adolescents with ASD and their parents perceived improvements in social functioning following intervention, which were maintained four months later and corroborated by improvements in conversational skills.

A storyboarding approach to train school mental health providers and paraprofessionals in the delivery of a strengths-based program for Latinx families affected by maternal depression.

Mental health professionals in schools and the community are often overburdened and underfunded in high-need areas, limiting their capacity to deliver needed family-based mental health interventions. To address this issue, paraprofessional school personnel (e.g., family engagement liaisons) can facilitate these family-based mental health interventions alongside licensed mental health professionals, thereby increasing access to mental health services for families with mental health needs. To train professional and paraprofessional school personnel in maternal depression and interventions, we used storyboarding, a narrative storytelling method traditionally used to create films. Latinx families who had previously participated in a family-focused program for maternal depression shared real life stories focused on themes of (a) maternal depression, (b) impact on children, (c) cultural views and role of immigration, (d) self-harm and suicide, and (e) what families need. In this conceptual paper, we describe our engagement of families in a multistep process of storyboarding that resulted in video modules of family stories for a training website and in-person workshop for school professionals and paraprofessionals. We conclude with how community-engaged tools such as storyboarding can be used to increase awareness and reduce stigma of maternal depression among staff training to deliver family-focused mental health programs in schools.

What kind of “poverty” predicts CPS contact: Income, material hardship, and differences among racialized groups

Background and PurposeChild protective services (CPS) contact is consistently linked with poverty in the US, and empirical evidence is mounting to indicate that disparate exposure to income poverty explains a substantial portion of racial inequities in CPS involvement. Evidence about the different distributions of income poverty and material hardship also suggests that income poverty may not sufficiently capture economic wellbeing among families. This paper assessed whether differences in exposure to income poverty and/or material hardship explain racial inequities in CPS contact and further examined whether income poverty and material hardship predict CPS contact differently within racialized groups. MethodsWe used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS), an urban cohort representative of births in large US cities in 1998–2000. The FFCWS data are ideal for this study in capturing each of the key constructs: racialized group membership, income, material hardship, and CPS contact. We measured income poverty and material hardship when children were age 1 and measured any CPS contact by age five. Our final sample included 3,517 families, including 1,848 Black, 614 white, and 1,055 Latinx families. We employed logistic regression to assess the associations between income poverty and material hardship, independently and jointly, and CPS contact. We conducted analyses in our full analytic sample and among subsamples of the Black, white, and Latinx families. ResultsWe found that differences in income-to-poverty ratio account for differences in CPS contact between Black and white families. Differences in CPS contact between Black and Latinx families were not explained by economic wellbeing measures alone but were ameliorated when differences in income poverty, material hardship, and a full set of family characteristics were considered. Additionally, we found that material hardship was a consistent predictor of CPS contact in the full sample and within each of the Black, white, and Latinx subsamples, even accounting for differences in income and other family characteristics. ConclusionsThe clear role of income poverty in explaining inequities in CPS contact between Black and white families and the consistent importance of material hardship in predicting CPS contact across all families underscore the critical importance of reducing income poverty and hardship and of distinguishing material need from maltreatment in the context of CPS. Our findings offer clear implications for policy intervention to reduce income poverty and material hardship. Such interventions might include extending the temporarily expanded Child Tax Credit and expanded food and housing assistance benefits, toward the ends of supporting child and family wellbeing and reducing economic and racial inequities in CPS contact.

Impact of Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric on Latinx Families' Perceptions of Child Safety and Health Care Access

Political rhetoric from the former U.S. president influences Latinx adults' feelings of safety and their decisions to seek care in the emergency department (ED). Our aim was to examine the impact of political rhetoric on feelings of safety and health care access in the pediatric population. This was a cross-sectional study of undocumented Latinx families (ULF), Latinx U.S. citizen families (LCF), and non-Latinx U.S. citizen families (NLF) conducted from November 2018 through February 2020 by means of interviewing a convenience sample of parents and guardians who brought their child to a pediatric clinic and two EDs in California. Of 705 parents approached, 449 (63.7%) agreed to participate: 138 ULF, 150 LCF, and 158 NLF. Most ULF (95%), LCF (88%), and NLF (78%) parents and guardians had heard anti-immigrant statements from the former U.S. president and most (94% ULF, 90% LCF, 86% NLF) believed these measures against immigrants were being enacted or will be enacted. More ULF (75%, 95% confidence interval [CI] 67-81%) reported that these statements made them concerned about their child's safety in the United States compared with 36% (95% CI 28-45%) and 34% (95% CI 26-43%) of LCF and NLF, respectively. More ULF 17% (95% CI 11-24%) said that these statements made them afraid to bring their child for medical care, compared with 5% (95% CI 2-10%) and 3% (95% CI 1-7%) of LCF and NLF, respectively. Most parents heard statements against undocumented immigrants by the former U.S. president and most believed measures were being enacted. This rhetoric had a substantial negative impact on ULF parents in terms of safety concerns for their child and fear of accessing health care.