ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
Seeing a need for bilingual therapists locally, Sarahi Aguilera began her higher education journey by graduating with an associate’s degree in criminal justice in 2018 from Seward County Community College.
The next stop for Aguilera was made at Wichita State University, where she graduated with a bachelor’s in criminal justice, along with a minor in psychology.
After graduating from Wichita State, Aguilera took some time off before coming back to Southwest Kansas and working with victims of physical and sexual violence as a victim advocate at the Liberal Area Rape Crisis/Domestic Violence Services (LARC/DVS)
It was at LARC/DVS where Aguilera saw the gap between crisis intervention and the amount of trauma many of her clients were carrying, as well as not being able to provide trauma care. This, she said, is when she decided to go back to school to get her master’s degree in social work to be able to be a mental health therapist and provide care after the de-escalation of an initial crisis.
Aguilera recently received her master’s from Fort Hays State University, completing her latest step on her higher education journey, and she said working with survivors of violence allowed her to see the impact trauma can leave for a person, both direct and indirect victims and family and friends. This, she said, allowed her to give victims the tools to be able to navigate life after a traumatic experience.
At LARC, Aguilera said though the agency had amazing therapists, those therapists only spoke English, and a majority of clients only spoke Spanish.
“Although we could provide that walkthrough, whether it was through getting a protection order or a de-escalation of crisis or crisis intervention, there was nothing to fill in the gap for once they were done with services with us and giving them that after care they needed,” she said.
For trauma with higher adversity, Aguilera would provide translation for clients, but she said as she was only an advocate at that time, translating did not help clients build the same connection with therapists that was in place without a translator.
That, Aguilera said, also means not having at times the knowledge to translate things correctly or know exactly what the therapist was going through so she could share that with the client.
Aguilera now is a bilingual therapist at Liberal’s Heartland’s Hope Mental Health Center, and she said much of what she does is focused on trauma care for children ages 5 and up as well as adults of any ages.
“I recently got trained in EMDR, eye desensitization movement reprocessing,” she said. “I am doing a lot of work with those clients who have very in-depth trauma, but I also work with people who have ADHD or depression or generalized anxiety. It’s a little bit all across the board on what I do.”
Now done with her formal education, Aguilera said her number one goal is to provide as much education as possible to the Latino community about mental health services, what is taboo and the reality of mental health itself.
“I am able to provide those services specifically in Spanish for those clients who don’t have access to mental health services because of the lack of bilingual providers we have, especially here in Southwest Kansas,” she said.
First and foremost, though, Aguilera wants her clients to understand healing from trauma is not a linear goal.
“It is one of the most difficult things somebody can go through, but it is also one of the bravest things they can do for themselves,” she said. “It’s so easy for us to stay stagnant and comfortable with our everyday life, especially if we have been ‘normalized’ from our childhood to not have boundaries, to be super high functioning, to say ‘no.’”
Aguilera said a large piece of the puzzle comes when clients understand the importance of prioritizing mental health as much as they do physical health.
“They are the most brave people,” she said. “It takes a lot to show up here and have such vulnerability with somebody who is essentially a stranger. They know how brave they are and how resilient they are by choosing to say ‘It’s time to put myself first and see what’s going on.’”
For Aguilera, the decision to come to Heartland’s Hope was quite unexpected, but she had much support and flexibility from coworkers and Heartland’s Hope owner Dr. Tera Robinson.
“They’re open to the ideas I have, especially with working to help build our Web site and helping build that bridge between the connection and how we can use social media to share information and education,” she said. “Tera gave me that opportunity when I was just a stranger. I came to her a few more days before starting my practice. I said, ‘I need a place,’ and she took that chance on me and has allowed me to grow. She continues to support me. It’s a family we have here.”
Before officially becoming a therapist at Heartland’s Hope, Aguilera did her practicum hours there and some shadowing at SCCC’s community health center, all the while working at Old Chicago.
“It was one of the most difficult things in my life,” she said.
The difficulty did not only come from having multiple obligations, as Aguilera is an undocumented immigrant. This meant she did not qualify for student loans or many scholarships that require citizenship, and she was having to pay for school completely out of pocket without the support of family.
“I live on my own, and with still having those bills to pay, I think it was one of the most difficult experiences, but it also made me appreciate my education and be able to not take for granted all the hard work it took me to get there,” Aguilera said. “There were many times I wanted to give up because it was either pay college tuition, buy food and pay rent, etc.”
Still, Aguilera encourages everyone interested in getting a degree to do so.
“Yes it will be very difficult, but it is also very possible,” she said.
Aguilera said having bilingual therapists is important to help build a diverse workforce.
“Being able to sit sometimes with some of my clients and having them share so many similarities and seeing the space I can bring to them specifically when I can relate and being able to understand where they’re coming from, it helps build that trust within each other, especially when we understand the culture,” she said. “Sometimes, I can relate on specific norms that come from certain cultures.”
For Spanish-speaking clients, having direct contact with a therapist, Aguilera said, helps build trust and rapport.
“It’s very important to have us be at the table, but also speak, not just be there for the diverse picture,” she said.
Aguilera too said it is especially important to be able to provide services in Spanish.
“In translation, things can get lost, and it is not the same bond as speaking with somebody in your own language and them having to have a third person sit there and translate what you’re trying to say,” she said. “Emotion gets lost in translation, and sometimes, things are not said exactly as they are to be. It’s very important to have someone sit there and be able to build that relationship and have that understanding.”
For those considering a career in mental health, Aguilera encourages them to move forward and look into the field.
“It can be terrifying sometimes to be on this side of the field with the work we can do and the emotional drainage that can sometimes come with working with trauma and working with all of that, but it is crucial especially with how everything is going in our world right now,” she said. “It is very important to hold space for people to process what’s going on and give them the tools and resources to get through.”
Aguilera’s formal education may be done for now, but that does not mean she is done learning.
“Depending on the licenses you hold, the requirements can be different, but each year, you’re supposed to fulfill a certain amount of hours of continuing education,” she said. “If you’re trained in a specific issue you’re working with, there needs to be updated education each year to be able to keep your license or renew.”
Aguilera said having her master’s is one of the most unreal realities she could ever imagine.
“I knew I wanted to be in the service to be able to fill in that gap, but I never truly understood how important it was going to be until I was in the program and getting my degree,” she said. “As a first generation immigrant, it was extremely important for me to show not only my parents, but my community all the sacrifices they did by giving up their dreams to help me follow mine and be there and supportive even though they couldn’t understand the magnitude of what I was carrying sometimes.”
For Aguilera, it was very important to let those who made sacrifices did not do so in vein.
“Everything they left behind from never seeing their family members again to having to see some of their family members’ funeral through a FaceTime call, I was not going to take advantage of that sacrifice they had made,” she said. “I was going to be somebody in life, and I was going to make everything work through all of their pain.”
Aguilera is Latina, and as of 2013, only about 4 percent of that culture had master’s degree. That number remains low in today’s world, and Aguilera said for mental health, it is even lower.
“Even through my program, sometimes with some of the discussions we were having, it was difficult to look around and see someone who could relate to me,” she said. “We did talk about immigration. We talked in depth about student rights, immigration, mental health and prison.”
Even when talking about immigration during discussion posts or Zoom calls, Aguilera said she felt alone in a group.
“Specifically, when we got to the immigration part, I felt so alone in sharing through our discussion posts or our weekly Zoom calls,” Aguilera said. “I felt although there were other Latino students who were with me throughout these past two years, I don’t think anybody came with the background I did.”
With all of this in mind, naturally, Aguilera is excited to have her master’s degree.
“I am so blessed, and I am so happy to finally be done,” she said. “It’s another step in what God has planned for me, and I’m excited to put into practice everything I’ve learned.”
