Mentoring Encouraging Teaching Achieving

Meeting your goals, achieving your dreams.

The La Casa META Program is designed for all undergraduate students to forge paths and create networks to achieve academic success and personal growth. Through the META Program, La Casa Cultural Latina promotes retention, service, and achievement to turn today’s students into tomorrow’s leaders, professionals, and community organizers.

What does the META Program do?

• Encourages students to define and set goals and work together.
• Develops strategies and timelines to achieve those goals.
• Directs you to campus resources to identify your strengths and acquire the skills you need to achieve academic success.
• Allows you to choose among the different programs and workshops that La Casa offers to help with your academic and personal achievement. Along with the small group interaction, La Casa hosts programs such as Lunch @ La Casa, and every other Monday with LRN.
• Creates a sense of collective responsibility among META members and urges all students to get involved with Latinas/os on and off-campus through mentoring and college recruitment programs, citizenship workshops, and community actions and celebrations.

For more information or questions, please contact us at lacasa@illinois.edu

Latinx Resilience Network

This Resilience Network provides support for Latinx students on campus, increases mental health wellness and awareness, and works as a space for students to share their campus climate experiences to build resilience.

The Latinx Resilience Network:

• educates students and faculty about mental health awareness and resources.
• trains students to be peer coordinators, facilitators, and listeners.
• fosters Latinx success on campus.

Components

This network has two components:

• Latinx Resilience Network Certificate Workshops
  To complete a Latinx Resilience Network certificate, you must attend four total workshops in one academic year. The certificate program is open to all students, staff and faculty, and all workshops are open to the community, students, faculty, and staff who wish to learn more about mental health within in the Latinx community and to help Latinx students who are struggling with mental health issues.
• LLS 396: Latinx Mental Health Topics
  This 3 credit seminar is offered to students who want a more in-depth exploration of Latina/o issues in mental health wellness and awareness. Students will gain an understanding of mental health issues facing Latino college students, resources available to them and their communities, and strategies for promoting and maintaining mental health resiliency. The class will explore such innovative practices as peer networking and outreach, community-based theatre, reflective writing, and role-playing. This class will be offered in Spring 2016.

History

After more than a year of discussions, the Latina/o Resilience Network officially began in Spring 2014 as a means to build a mental health support and educational network for Latina/o students. The Latina/o Resilience Network was first created with the support of Veronica M. Kann, La Casa Cultural Latina, and Alicia P. Rodriguez, Department of Latina/Latino Studies. With the support of students, faculty and a Strategic Initiative Grant from Student Affairs, they were able to create and develop this new peer network on campus.

Listen to our story

Part of the WILL series "Unmet Needs: Living with mental illness in central Illinois".