LISTA Program Helps Social Workers Get Ready to Assist Latinx Community
The word for “ready” in Spanish is “lista,” and alumnus Gerardo Leal said he’s more than ready to take on his first role as a counselor in the Latinx community thanks to the LISTA certification program he completed at Rutgers School of Social Work.
Launched in 2020, LISTA (Latin/a/o/x Initiatives for Service, Training, and Assessment) is a four-course, 12-credit program embedded within the Master of Social Work program that is designed to give future practitioners like Leal the ability to provide culturally informed social services to Latinx populations.
Despite being bilingual and raised in Mexico, Leal said his LISTA training expanded his awareness to the diversity of the Latinx experience and ingrained in him the importance of identifying and dismantling social stigmas and institutional barriers to treatment.
“The program magnified my own abilities and helped me identify my own bias,” said Leal, who graduated with his master’s degree in social work in May 2024. “LISTA disrupts the myth that the Latinx community is a monolith and prepares clinicians by focusing on the need to approach our profession with cultural sensitivity.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2021 estimates, approximately 20.9 percent of New Jersey’s population and 28.9 percent of New York City’s population are Latinos. However, only 14 percent of all social workers in the United States identify as Latinx, said LISTA Director Elsa Candelario, a professor of professional practice. Of that percentage, she said, far fewer are bilingual.
Available to students in both the Management and Policy (MAP) or in Clinical Social Work (CSW) specialization, Candelario said LISTA students may learn Spanish specific to social service situations, are educated on migration experiences, taught how to approach the stigma surrounding mental health care for Latinx families, and how to spot and rectify institutional barriers to treatment.
“There’s a lot of shame and the view that mental illness is a weakness. Addressing that requires educational campaigns,” said Candelario, adding that cultural misunderstanding can lead to over diagnosis of very serious conditions during assessments and interventions. “We need more bilingual clinicians trained in culturally congruent interventions, services that are open during the hours that the population needs and services with forms in two languages.”
In addition to gaining perspective in their course work on the issues that prevent the Latinx community from seeking and receiving mental health care, LISTA students also fulfill an in-person practicum during their advanced year in a Latinx serving agency, have the option to have a mentor from the MSW alumni community through the LISTA Links initiative and are encouraged to explore study abroad opportunities in Latin American countries.
“According to a 2017 research study, only 10 percent of schools of social work have syllabi related to Latinos, and only 5 percent of social work schools have a certificate program like LISTA,” said Candelario, noting 78 students have earned their LISTA certification since it started, with another 67 enrolled this academic year.
Candelario said the program has been able to garner significant scholarships from state governmental and private funders who are working to meet the needs of the residents in their communities. To date, a total of 70 social work students have received significant support: 12 received $4,000 field stipends, 29 received $10,000 scholarships focused on behavioral health (with seven of those students receiving this amount for two years), and 29 will receive $10,000 scholarships and $4,000 stipends in 2024-2025 to cover their MSW tuition while serving specific communities.
“We are unique, and we are filling a gap,” said Candelario, who earned her Doctorate in Social Work from University of Alabama, MSW from Columbia University, and BA from Rutgers University ran a Hispanic serving nonprofit organization in NJ for 23 years before coming to Rutgers 2020. “Many agencies are struggling to find a bilingual workforce, so this program is incredibly well received by agencies that want our students to do their practicum with them.”
That includes students like Leal, 53, who as a brown, bilingual, male and formerly undocumented immigrant, likens himself to a unicorn in the world of social work. When he starts his new job in October with Hudson SPEAKS, a nonprofit that supports survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, he will be the first male clinician on staff.
After emigrating from Mexico at 17, Leal spent his formative years in Spanish Harlem, toiling in restaurants and living in fear of deportation. Decades later, those experiences drive him to be a positive agent of change in his community.
“My personal story has plenty of trauma, but I choose to tell it from a perspective of resilience and hope,” said Leal, now a naturalized citizen and married father of two. “As a counselor, this perspective will empower me to provide my clients with the tools they need to reclaim their own narrative.”
