June 12, 2017
By Valeria Merino
Lisveth Soto was 18 years old when she traveled more than 2,000 miles from her hometown of Oaxaca, Mexico to the U.S. for a marriage that would one day be marred by domestic violence.
The short-lived marriage left Soto struggling to find affordable therapists in Louisville, who she also felt comfortable sharing her story.
In January, Soto heard of Shannon Lockhart, a therapist who was offering low-cost mental health treatment to uninsured Spanish-speaking individuals who suffered traumatic events.
Lockhart, a licensed clinical social worker, operates a private practice through donated office space and allows clients to pay what they can for the counseling she provides. At times, she doesn't charge clients anything.
But the free therapy comes at a cost. As a way to continue her services while maintaining a stable life, Lockhart is setting out to raise funds through GoFundMe that would enable her to continue providing therapy to Spanish-speakers in Louisville.
Lockhart set the goal at $5,000, unsure of how the community would respond. In under a month, donations have reached just over $1,800.
"These are trying times and mental health services are very hard to find when you don’t have health insurance,” Haydee Canovas, a family nurse practitioner who donated $600, wrote on the GoFundMe page. “Let’s lift up our community by supporting this much-needed service.”
Many of the people Lockhart works with are uninsured, and her client base is built from referrals she gets from some of the community centers in the city, like La Casita Center and the Family Health Center. Referrals also come from other licensed professionals in the city and from the school system, who send clients her way due to the barriers they face with language and cost.
Latinos in the U.S. have become a growing share of the uninsured, rising from 29 percent in 2013 to 40 percent in 2016, according to a report by the Commonwealth Fund.
“There’s a whole invisible population, and that’s Spanish-speaking people,” Lockhart said. “There’s a huge need, and there’s no one to take care of this population.”
Soto, who was left alone with a 3-year-old son following her divorce, said she often felt intimidated working with people who didn’t speak her language.
“Being alone in this country without family or anything, I felt like I was in a difficult situation,” Soto said.
A study in 2012 showed that language was one of the most common barriers to utilization of mental health services among Hispanic immigrants.
Lockhart said her deep level of understanding with her clients stems from her experience working as a trauma therapist in Central America for 12 years.
“Just because someone can speak Spanish doesn’t always mean they understand where people are coming from,” Lockhart said. “I have a history and I know that particular culture.”
The Latino population in Louisville has exploded. It grew from 4,755 to about 28,749 between 2000 and 2015, according to U.S. Census data. The influx of Spanish speakers has sparked a growing demand for mental health professionals who can speak their language.
Jomaris DeJesus, a certified life coach, said she has found a market in Spanish-speaking people in Louisville due to the low number of licensed professionals available.
“Sometimes I get calls about children, and I send them to Seven Counties (now called Centerstone), because I know they have Spanish-speaking therapists for children, but they’re really booked and sometimes people have to wait three or four months before they see someone,” DeJesus said.
Resources like the Americana Community Center and the Family Health Center offer several services to refugees and immigrants, but they often are limited to the professionals who provide long-term mental health services in Spanish.
Since opening her practice, Lockhart said she has worked on a part-time basis providing long-term therapy to nearly 20 Spanish speakers struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder.
“Without setting out to do that, it just kind of became a mission for me,” Lockhart said. “I want to be available to help people no matter what. It shouldn’t be a luxury. I’m the person who says come see me anyway.”
Source: The Courier-Journal
