Session: Community-Driven Models of Supportive Strategies and Programs for Latine Well-Being and Participation across the Life Course (Society for Social Work and Research 31st Annual Conference)

Latine communities across the life course are navigating an increasingly hostile sociopolitical climate marked by heightened immigration enforcement, structural exclusion, and persistent inequities in access to health and social services. These conditions not only threaten individual and family well-being but also undermine trust in public institutions and weaken the foundations of a participatory democracy. This symposium brings together three community-engaged studies that examine how culturally responsive, community services strengthen networks of care, expand access to services, and foster collective agency among Latine communities in the current anti-immigrant climate.

The first presentation examines the impact of restrictive immigration policies on Latine immigrant families involved in child welfare systems and the response from service providers. Drawing qualitative data from service providers and legal professionals across California, findings highlight how fear of enforcement and family separation access to essential services. Results show the strategies providers adopt to informally expand their roles and address service gaps. Participants described taking on multiple functions such as coordinating legal, health, and social services, providing informal support, and assisting with system navigation. Findings underscore the importance of cross-sector collaboration, culturally grounded and linguistically responsive practice, and flexible service models in advancing equitable access to care.

The second presentation explores a community-engaged, peer-supported digital mental health intervention designed to address barriers to mental health care among Spanish-speaking Latine adults. Findings from this embedded qualitative study highlight the importance of culturally grounded training, relational support, and participatory design in fostering meaningful engagement. Peer supporters play a central role in bridging gaps in access by drawing on shared lived experience, language concordance, and trust. The intervention also builds on the strengths of Latine communities by fostering mutual support and reinforcing existing networks of care, extending community capacity for connection and well-being, particularly at a time of heightened fear and distress.

The third presentation focuses on older Latine immigrants with disabilities, a population facing compounded barriers to social connection, mobility, and civic participation. This qualitative case study of a national social connection program, identifies a new program model. Through accessible digital infrastructure, shared governance, and a flexible structure that evolves in response to older adults, the emergent connections platform builds collective capacity for engagement and mutual support. Findings from this study show how this model enables older adults to actively shape the program and services and facilitates participation in the community. Sustaining and scaling these models is essential to advancing civic participation among historically disenfranchised populations.

Several cross-cutting themes emerge across studies: the central role of trust and cultural resonance in service engagement; the importance of flexible, community-driven models that adapt to evolving needs; and the critical function of social networks and mutual aid in mitigating the impacts of structural exclusion. Together, these findings underscore that strengthening democracy requires investment in community-based infrastructures that are accessible, culturally resonant, and center the contributions and strengths of Latines across the life course. It is a crucial time, ripe for reimagining service delivery models and strategies that uplift community knowledge, leadership, and collective agency.