The aim of the present study was to examine the hypothesis that attachment and childhood sexual abuse (CSA) interacted such that school aged CSA survivors with insecure attachment to parents would be at an elevated risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and trauma symptoms. Participants (n = 111, ages 7–12) comprised two groups, child CSA survivors (n = 43) and a matched comparison group of children (n = 68) recruited from the community. Children completed the Child Attachment Interview (CAI) as well as the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children (TSCC). There was a significant interaction between sexual abuse history and attachment security, such that sexually abused children with insecure attachment representations had significantly more PTSD and trauma symptoms than sexually abused children with secure attachment to parents. The findings show that using a dual lens of attachment and CSA can facilitate the identification of children most at risk and has important implications for understanding risk and resilience processes.

COVID-19 has disproportionately affected the Latinx community, leading to heightened economic instability and increased mortality/morbidity. Frontline community health workers (promotoras) have played an integral role in serving low-income Latinx immigrant communities, disseminating health information to this vulnerable community while also facing heightened risks to their own health and well-being. This study explores the impact of the pandemic on Latinx communities and the promotoras that serve them, examining how the stresses and inequities the pandemic wrought might be mitigated. Promotoras (N = 15, all female) were recruited from a local health agency in Santa Ana, California, and completed a semistructured interview about their experiences during COVID-19. Qualitative analyses demonstrated that the pandemic substantially affected the daily lives both of community members, via economic challenges, limited access to reliable pandemic-related information, and psychological and social stress, and of promotoras, via changes to the nature of their work and psychological and social stress. Promotoras perceived that these harms might be mitigated by providing for economic and material needs in the community and that promotoras can be fortified to continue serving the community through self-care and psychosocial healing practices. According to promotoras, the Latinx community needs economic and material resources to overcome COVID-19-related stressors. Additionally, promotoras may benefit from programming to preserve mental and physical health in the wake of new stressors. Lending greater support to promotoras within the agencies in which they are nested may enable them to be more successful in fulfilling their mission and sustaining their own health.

Barriers facing effective science‐to‐practice translation have led scholars to conduct early‐stage intervention research within community organizations. We describe our experiences developing a manualized parent–youth attachment‐based group therapy intervention within a community health organization dedicated to serving low‐income Latinx immigrant families, Latino Health Access (LHA), in which services are rendered by trained community workers (promotores). By conducting a qualitative analysis of interviews with all members of this academic–community partnership (research [Principal Investigator, student researchers] and community agency team members [Administrators, promotores]), we discuss the challenges and opportunities that this collaboration has generated. The results led both the research and community teams to question assumptions about the basic skills, values, and attitudes that underlie the integration of science and practice. We will share the insights that have helped to promote connection and understanding among the stakeholders and the efforts made to support the progress and successes of developing community interventions.

Evidence for the effectiveness of attachment-based interventions in improving youth’s socioemotional health increases each year, yet potential for scalability of existing programs is limited. Available programs may have lower acceptability within low-income immigrant communities. Co-designing and implementing interventions with trained community workers (promotores) offers an appealing solution to multiple challenges, but community workers must have high investment in the program for this to be a workable solution. This study examines the experiences of promotores involved in the co-creation and delivery of an attachment-based intervention program for low-income Latinx youth (ages 8 to 17) and their mothers. Promotores (N=8) completed surveys, reporting on the experiences of each therapy group in terms of group dynamic (e.g., promotores’ connectedness to each group, perceived program relevance). Following the completion of the intervention study, promotores participated in interviews in which they described their experiences in co-creating the intervention, delivering the intervention to the community, and their recommendations for improving the intervention. Overall, promotores perceived group dynamics as positive, though the mother groups were evaluated as significantly higher in quality (e.g., lower conflict) than the youth groups. Interviews revealed that promotores enjoyed the co-creation process and identified important areas for improvements for the intervention (incorporation of more visuals, creation of age-limited groups, reducing number of youth sessions) and evaluation (reduction in length, modification of language). Integrating input from promotores in the process of co-creating and implementing an intervention can benefit every member of the community from the program participants to the providers themselves.

No abstract