Integrating services is 'breaking down barriers'

December 19, 2016

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The magazine for alumni and friends of Virginia Commonwealth University, Shafer Court Connections, published a recent feature on the Primary Care Psychology Training Network's provision of free bilingual mental health services to underserved Latino patients in the Richmond community.  Read the fall 2016 issue (p. 23) for the full article.

Excerpt: "'When we recruited our first bilingual graduate students [to the doctoral program], we landed two - one from New York and one from Los Angleles - who said that they came here specifically to be part of this clinic and to serve low-income Latino communities,' says psychology professor Bruce Rybarczyk, Ph.D. (M.S.'86/H&S; Ph.D.'88/H&S), who heads the project. 'Our argument from the beginning was, if we can do something special here, by helping the mental health of the local Latino community, we felt we could leverage that into sustainable services. And we did.'

Rybarczyk says the success fueled by the initial two grants from local foundations led to obtaining $1 million in additional competitive funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, allowing the program to embed doctoral students in six clinics, including three that serve Latino patients."