Hogg Foundation supports bilingual mental health grad students at Baylor

AUSTIN—Baylor University graduate students Lizeth Castillo, Carolina Fuentes and Andres Felipe Monsalve have been awarded scholarships from the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health to support bilingual mental health services in Texas.

This is in addition to Bea Florez, who continues to benefit from a previous Hogg scholarship, while completing work on her master's degree in the Baylor School of Social Work.

Castillo, a master's candidate at the Baylor School of Social Work, graduated with a bachelor's degree in biblical theological studies and an associate of arts in cross-cultural studies from Baptist University of the Americas in San Antonio.

She wants to become a licensed social worker so she can effectively serve the Hispanic community, where there's a major void in mental health services due to the stigma of mental illness and the lack of linguistically and culturally competent service providers.

Fuentes received a bachelor of arts in environmental studies and religion from Baylor, where she also is pursuing a dual master of divinity/ master of social work degree at Truett Theological Seminary and the Baylor School of Social Work. Growing up in Colombia, Fuentes has firsthand knowledge of the Latino community and seeks to serve this population by providing culturally and linguistically competent mental health services.

Monsalve is a graduate from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Cali-Colombia, where he concentrated in international relations. He also is pursuing a dual master of divinity/ master of social work degree and seeks to use his cultural background combined with his education to serve the Latino community.

Florez completed her undergraduate education at the University of Texas Pan American in 2006 and was commissioned in the United States Reserves the same year. Currently a captain and the commander of the 812th QM Company, Florez has entered the final phase—field placement—of Baylor's MSW program and is interning at Buckner Community Transformation Center and Hope Family Health Clinic in Waco.

Now in its fourth year, the bilingual scholarship program has awarded 109 scholarships since fall 2008 to increase cultural and linguistic diversity in the Texas mental health workforce.

"This innovative scholarship program directly addresses the critical need for a more culturally and linguistically competent mental health workforce," said Octavio N. Martinez, Jr., executive director of the Hogg Foundation.

Scholarship recipients receive full tuition and fees. Recipients must be fluent in English and a second language chosen by the graduate program, typically Spanish. They also must commit to working in Texas after graduation, providing mental health services for a period equal to the timeframe of the scholarship.