How to Support Migrant Farmworkers' Mental Health: It Starts with Partnerships

Thu, 12/16/2021 | by Jenna Feinauer

By Jenna Feinauer, Migrant Clinicians Network and Dr Ivette Ruiz, MS-HSBP, Healing by Growing Farms LLC

Although the frequency of mental illnesses among migrants varies, all migrants are subject to environmental and situational influences such as natural disasters that may greatly affect their mental state. The COVID-19 pandemic has only increased the need for mental health care especially within the Latinx community. The Latinx community often struggles to find mental health services that are inclusive, offered by those in the Latinx community, and provided by those that speak their language.

To respond to the mental health crisis in the Latinx farmworker community, Migrant Clinicians Network (MCN) partnered with the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network (FRSAN). Through this partnership grew La Fuerza Latina, the first Spanish-speaking-only cohort for FRSAN. This group created the Fuerza Latina Magazine, the first Spanish-only magazine for farmers and ranchers in the Northeast.

Farmworkers in the field

The full-color Spanish-language magazine was published in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, which this year featured the theme, “Esperanza: A Celebration of Hispanic Heritage and Hope.” The magazine invites readers to find hope and heritage through the inclusion of mental health resources, descriptions of the work that health care workers do in response to waning mental health, and interviews with Latinx farmers who work in both urban and rural settings in various agricultural industries in the northeast. Eleven people were interviewed, including health workers and farmers.

A person feeding chickens

FRSAN, a new partner for MCN, valued MCN's inclusion due to our perspective and experience with Latinx farmworkers. As a network that connects those who work in the farming, ranching, and other agriculture-related industries to stress assistance programs, FRSAN aims to create a channel to improve behavioral health awareness, literacy, and outcomes for agricultural producers, workers, and their families. Fuerza Latina Magazine facilitated a place where new and existing agricultural workers shared their stories of hope, inspiration, educational strategies of support between partners, and a shared vision for what resources were needed.

According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), in 2019, a majority of farmworkers identified as Latinx or Hispanic. (See the table below.) The magazine aims to reach Latinx farmworkers. The magazine continues to be circulated digitally via email and close to 3,000 copies have been printed and distributed throughout the Northeast.

A farmer gathers honey

This magazine offers a variety of interviews, with dairy farmworkers and beekeepers, a holistic therapeutic healing farm, and health providers and social workers. A list of resources related to mental health, stress, suicide, and disaster relief resources were provided at the end.

Two people stand in front of a shed

The stories in the magazine offer the Latinx farmworker community information on what other migrant farmworkers may be experiencing in a variety of agricultural settings as well as what professionals and resources they can depend on if they are struggling and in need of help. Currently, there is only one edition of this magazine and efforts are being considered to translate the magazine from its original Spanish-only version to English to serve the English-speaking farm community. La Fuerza Latina hopes to publish future communications to continue spreading stories of hope and resources for the Latinx community, with the support of FRSAN, who is continuing to support the efforts of La Fuerza Latina group and their endeavors as the first Spanish-speaking-only cohort.

References

Read the Fuerza Latina Magazine

Read the statistics from the USDA on farm labor