Capps Announces More Than $100,000 in Federal Grants to Help Latino Youth

Sep 29, 2016 Issues: Healthcare

(WASHINGTON) Today, Rep. Lois Capps (CA-24) announced that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded Proyecto HEROES in Santa Barbara $108,170 in funding for their work to address health disparities related to trauma exposure and violence prevention among Latino youth. Specifically, the grant will be used to launch a low-cost, culturally attentive, parent-youth engagement prevention program, which will be facilitated by youth mentors and ‘promotores’ who are also community health workers.

Proyecto HEROES, led by Dr. Maryam Kia-Keating at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Dr. Jessica Adams at Child Abuse Listening Mediation (CALM), began in 2013. Since then, federal funds from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), part of NIH, have supported their efforts to bring together key stakeholders from Santa Barbara County in a collaborative effort to address health disparities using a trauma-informed, restorative approach. The project aims to prevent youth violence and reduce its long-term effects that burden public health in the Latino youth population.

“I am pleased to see federal funding for this critical local project,” said Capps. “Research has shown that regular exposure to violence harms children, often having long-term consequences. If we want happy, thriving communities, we must do everything we can to help young people feel safe. Proyecto HEROES’ innovative programming engages the community — especially youth — in order to prevent exposure to violence in the first place and ensure that more children can lead healthy lives. Congratulations to Proyecto HEROES for this well-deserved grant award.”

“We are so fortunate to have received NICHD support since 2013 for Proyecto HEROES, a collaborative effort to support Latino/a youth to develop in the healthiest way possible, to reduce their exposure to violence, and to foster their strengths,” said Dr. Kia-Keating. “Over the past few years, an amazing set of deeply invested Latino and Latino-serving community partners, each local heroes themselves, have come to the table to work in partnership with Proyecto HEROES. Because of their commitment, we are going to be able to make significant advancements in prevention science, and towards reducing health disparities.”              

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