Nalec’s Healthcare & Mental Health Campaigns

For Hispanics, mental health and mental illness are often stigmatized topics resulting in suffering for many generations.

NaLEC has been instrumental in educating Hispanics/Latinos around the realities of mental.

Grassroots Work:

• Outreach and Education: Collaborating with the American Psychiatric Association and the Department of Health & Human Services providing community leaders with accurate and culturally-contextualized information about. We continue to connect with influential Hispanic evangelical clergy leaders who are trusted leaders in their communities, making them effective cultural ambassadors.

National:

We work with key Hispanic evangelical leaders to provide them with support and guidance with a particular focus on culturally-sensitive and linguistically-appropriate trainings.  We contextualize trainings so that they are meaningful and relevant to Hispanic evangelicals and Latino community leaders and members. We work with national partners to provide cultural competency training on Hispanic evangelical worldviews and perspectives on healthcare and well-being.

NaLEC fulfills a few critical needs. In the area of public health, we aspire to be a leader in improving public health through efforts inspired by our evangelical commitments. We do this in three distinct ways:

1. advocacy around health-care initiatives that benefit underserved communities;
2. health education and community outreach
3. state and national advocacy on issues of access and faith-based partnerships.

NaLEC was a key advocate for the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).  NaLEC has been commended and recognized nationally for our work with immigrants and underserved communities on issues of poverty, immigration, and education. NaLEC has partnered to promote the USDA’s “Mi plato” campaign and with First-Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiatives. NaLEC has been commended and recognized nationally for our work with immigrant and underserved communities on issues of poverty, immigration, and education. NaLEC’s leadership has met with the White House and Secretary Sebelius to discuss its outreach work to Latino evangelicals on issues of healthcare, immigration, and education. NaLEC’s commitment is to identify and convene key Hispanic evangelical leaders from our networks in states with large underserved communities and encourage them to host enrollment and outreach events. Once events are planned, NaLEC’s clergy on the ground collaborate with our partners to help them conduct the outreach or enrollment event. This structure has leveraged our resources and allowed us to have a national scope.