Stress Doesn’t Take a Summer Break

A new kind of mental health care has just opened in Newark. Here’s why it matters and why it needs your support.

There is a conversation that has been missing from Newark’s public health landscape for a long time.

Not about physical health. About the weight families carry internally, the anxiety stemming from immigration uncertainty, housing instability, and raising children in a neighborhood where resources are scarce. The grief of displacement. The exhaustion of working multiple jobs and still falling behind. The fear that settled into many immigrant households these past months, when federal immigration enforcement intensified across New Jersey.

That weight does not lift in summer. For many families, it gets heavier.

In late 2025, La Casa de Don Pedro and RWJBarnabas Health opened El Barrio Wellness Center in Newark’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, a mental health clinic built from the ground up to serve Newark’s immigrant and bilingual families. In a few short months, we have now amassed an average 4-week waiting list.

“The demand is so high that we are now searching for more clinicians who speak our clients’ language and understand their cultural experiences,” states Dr. Enmanuel Mercedes, Director of El Barrio Wellness Center.

El Barrio Wellness Center and Family Success Centers offer:

Individual, family, couples, and group therapy in English and Spanish
Child and adolescent behavioral health services, including trauma-focused therapy and school-based support
Psychiatric evaluation and diagnosis
A Liberation Health Model approach that understands mental health within its economic, political, cultural, and historical context, affirming clients’ lived experience rather than pathologizing it
Behavioral health education and outreach, including community presentations, mental health awareness events, and peer support groups
Case management, housing navigation, and employment readiness referrals
Sliding scale fees based on income, serving families from 100% to 400% of federal poverty guidelines, regardless of immigration status
Connection to LCDP’s full network of services including early childhood education, adult education, homebuyers and financial literacy training, legal services referral, immigration support, and family stability services, such as a farmers market, summer recreational activities, and food pantry, through our Family Success Centers.

The data is clear. According to the National Library of Medicine, Hispanic/Latino adults are 28% less likely than U.S. adults overall to receive mental health treatment, reflecting gaps in access, awareness, and engagement with services. Black adults are also substantially underrepresented in mental health care utilization, with one national analysis indicating that of the 21% of Black and African Americans who had a mental health concern, only 39% of these individuals received mental health services.

These disparities are compounded locally. In New Jersey, where Newark is located, structural barriers such as poverty, limited access to provider networks, and language differences persist. Poverty rates among Black and Latino children in the state are significantly higher than those of other children, a key social determinant of mental health risk.

For Latino and immigrant communities specifically, mainstream mental health systems have long fallen short, not because the need is lower, but because the services available do not reflect the language, values, or experience of the people who need them. Research consistently shows that culturally adapted care produces measurably better outcomes. Trust is not a soft metric. It is clinical.

El Barrio Wellness Center was built on that understanding. It is working toward full Medicaid credentialing and relies on private philanthropy to keep its services free and accessible to those who cannot afford them.

Your donation today is what keeps those doors open.

Give $100. Open the door to mental health care for a Newark family.