The Old North Sacramento Latino Neighborhood Counseling Program, which provides individual and family counseling services at St. Joseph Church in Sacramento, is a collaborative effort addressing the need for mental health services, especially in the Latino community.

The program will offer culturally sensitive, bilingual counseling services that emphasize marriage and family issues, especially those involving managing cultural changes within the family and community.

Verbum Dei Father Francisco Velazquez, pastor of St. Joseph Parish, said he first saw the need for family counseling services within the Latino community while doing pastoral work several years ago. Many parishioners were struggling with family issues, marital problems and communication barriers between parents and their children.

“I realized there were people seeing me needing spiritual direction,” Father Velazquez said, “but there were very human needs too -- the need for counseling and therapy I could not provide.”

Describing St. Joseph as “a very special parish, a community faced with social justice issues,” Father Velazquez said that while 80 percent of parishioners are Latino, the new parish-based counseling program seeks to address the pastoral needs of the entire community.

By providing parish office space for the counseling program, Father Velazquez envisions clients feeling “confident and comfortable” in discussing very personal issues of concern.

In retrospect it was providential that one of Father Velazquez’s parishioners is Alberto Velazquez, lead organizer with the North Valley Sponsoring Committee.

“I give thanks to God that Alberto is here,” Father Velazquez said. “He took the whole idea for the counseling program and made it flesh.”

Having chosen community organizing as both his vocation and life mission, Velazquez has visited most of the parishes in the Sacramento Diocese.

Working in the Latino community, especially among new immigrants where “both parents are working hard,” he sees the need for professional counseling within a church setting.

“Many have difficulty finding help in their own language and many feel afraid to seek help outside the church,” he said.

To confirm that there was a need for parish-based counseling at St. Joseph, a year ago Velazquez coordinated a counseling needs assessment survey of parishioners.

Of the 301 survey respondents, 59 percent said they were interested in onsite counseling at St. Joseph Parish.

Of those interested, 64 percent said they would be willing to pay for at least part of the service.

Velazquez then enlisted support of Kurt Chismark, executive director of Catholic Social Service of Sacramento, in launching the Old North Sacramento Latino Neighborhood Counseling Program.

Chismark said the new counseling program at St. Joseph is modeled after the agency’s New Pathways Counseling Services program for Latino families, “Consejos De Nuevos Senderos.”

Both programs are located at the Catholic Social Service office on Newman Court, near California State University, Sacramento.

“Father Velazquez really had a need and validated it by doing a needs assessment,” Chismark noted.

Chismark explained that Catholic Social Service staff running the “Consejos De Nuevos Senderos” program had found “a lot of people who need counseling services weren’t coming,” because of lack of transportation, cost and other issues.

Claudia Alvarez, a licensed clinical social worker and member of St. Joseph Parish, has been selected to meet with clients, prioritized on the basis of need, at the St. Joseph Parish office.

Alvarez, who has worked at New Pathways Counseling Services for the past two years, holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in social work from CSUS.

Her previous counseling experience includes working as a bilingual therapist at the Yolo County Service Agency and in social work and therapy at an elementary school in the North Sacramento School District.

Alvarez said she feels like she’s been a therapist “all my life.”

“Counseling is naturally embedded in me,” said Alvarez, who recalls her cousins coming to her with relationship problems. “They told me I was a good listener and gave good advice.”

Chismark said the initial goal of the pilot parish-based counseling program is to ensure that 50 to 75 Latino clients, who because of geographic, language or financial barriers have not received counseling, receive therapy.

A second objective is for 75 percent of project participants to report decreased depression, increased family communication and anger management skills, and 75 percent of parents served to report increased parenting knowledge skills.

Another key component of the counseling program is affordability. Proof of income will be required from clients on their first visit and fees will be based on a sliding scale.

Funding is provided by a grant from Catholic Healthcare West and Catholic Social Service of Sacramento.

Father Velazquez said the collaborative project linking people and resources has been “a pioneering experience.”

“We realized we not only had the means and resources to go forward, but the space and people to get it done,” he said.

The long-range plan for the counseling program is to not only to reach out to the entire parish population but eventually extend it to include the St. Joseph School community.

For more information on the Old North Sacramento Latino Neighborhood Counseling Program, call Catholic Social Service of Sacramento at (916) 452-7481.

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