Building Alliances to Serve Newcomer Immigrant Children and Families

El Encuentro is a team of pediatricians, mental health providers, nonprofit organization leaders, and community researchers dedicated to protecting the health and interests of newcomer immigrant youth and families.  Impacted by our experiences working with immigrant youth in detention centers, at the border, and in our own communities, we seek to develop and evaluate model programs that provide integrated, multidisciplinary, trauma-informed services.

The receipt of our team’s Stage 1 funding from Stanford Impact Labs last spring coincided with the lifting of Title 42 in the U.S., a contested pandemic-era public health policy which prevented most migrants from crossing the border and seeking asylum.  By the end of 2023, migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border hit a record high.  Since the end of Title 42, we have seen countless policy changes restricting immigration pathways and increasing trauma at the border, especially for youth and families. 

There have been widespread reports of family separation and inhumane detention practices at the border, particularly for young children. President Biden signed an executive order limiting border crossings and asylum requests. These challenges represent significant obstacles to newcomer children and families’ already-difficult journeys towards safe resettlement.

When our team, led by N. Ewen Wang and Ryan Matlow of the Stanford School of Medicine, began defining the problems facing immigrant youth—initially as part of the SIL Design Fellowship—we identified many obvious systemic and technical issues which have been exacerbated by these recent policy changes.  However, we also highlighted a very human element of this problem landscape, which becomes even more important in the wake of these changes. 

At the center of our problem statement is the recognition that newcomer youth need to be met with consistency and care rather than being forced to navigate a complicated system alone, continually retell their traumas to different providers, and be at high risk of falling through the cracks of fragmented systems. 

As the path to become established in the U.S. becomes more challenging for immigrant youth and families, the need for this type of holistic and empathetic support only increases.

Over the past year, we have honed in on this human-centered problem and approach by starting where we began. We named our project El Encuentro, meaning “the encounter” or “the starting place” in Spanish. This project started with encounters - and we continue in that way, meeting values-aligned collaborators, building those relationships, and co-creating solutions together. 

With support from SIL, we have been able to grow our partnerships with Ayudando Latinos a Soñar and the Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County. 

We have also been able to convene broader groups across the Bay Area. This region is home not only to diverse immigrant communities, but to innovative and dedicated service providers that support these communities. We are co-creating interdisciplinary collaborations among service providers and stakeholders to develop and pilot best practices to support newcomer youth.

Last year, we organized a convening of more than 20 service providers to facilitate networking and coordination, define problems in the field, and begin to ideate on solutions. We also established two working groups based on problem statements and ideas for solutions that emerged from convening participants. One focuses on Medical-Legal-Educational partnerships and another focuses on establishing standards for outcome measurement and impact assessment when working with newcomer youth. 

Through the convening, Shazeen Suleman, MD and Lily Quiñonez of Sequoia Union High School District formed a partnership to help newcomer immigrant children obtain vaccinations necessary to attend school. To date, over 300 youth have been supported through this partnership and pathway. 

As a team of pediatricians, mental health professionals, and community service providers, we recognize the crucial role of trusting, empathetic relationships in helping children thrive.  Likewise, we know that healthy partnerships are essential to developing effective solutions for immigrant youth. By selecting values-aligned collaborators, deepening those relationships, and continually incorporating community voice, we hope to create solutions that enable immigrant children to find easier footholds in our communities.