When a center of excellence for Latino Health was established at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in 2013, faculty involved with the growing number of Latinos in Southeast Baltimore knew a bilingual, multidisciplinary approach to health care was warranted. But the summer of 2014 kicked things up a notch, says pediatrician Sarah Polk.

There was a significant influx of youth emigrating from Central America, largely prompted by heightened violence in the region, says Polk, medical director of the Children’s Medical Practice, an outpatient pediatrics practice at Johns Hopkins Bayview. About 75 percent of its patients are Latinos from immigrant families. Adolescents as young as 12 were coming alone or with similar-aged peers or cousins. Polk and her colleagues heard about this through patient families, who asked where their newly arrived relatives could get medical care.

“We became aware of how stressful this was for families, and how harrowing the journey had been for many of these kids,” Polk says. “Even in the most successful examples, these were kids reuniting with parents with whom they had only telephone contact potentially for up to a decade.” On the flip side, some parents were newly responsible for teens they hadn’t parented for several years.

Additionally, Polk and colleagues began receiving calls from school employees or community members concerned that some of the new arrivals had post-traumatic stress disorder and asking where they could find mental health services. With no access to insurance and a scarcity of Spanish-speaking mental health professionals, the answer was nowhere.

With help from a social worker in the Baltimore City public schools and Johns Hopkins child psychiatrist Rheanna Platt, Polk and colleagues created Teen Testimonios, bilingual school-based stress reduction groups for recently immigrated adolescents. The program, piloted in the 2014-2015 school year and funded by Johns Hopkins’ Urban Health Institute, was so well-received that it has continued and expanded.

It’s just one offering from Centro SOL (Center for Salud/Health and Opportunity for Latinos), sponsored through a five-year grant from the Aaron and Lillie Straus Foundation and matching funds from Johns Hopkins Medicine. The center has five core areas: clinical care, education, research, advocacy, and global health. All work is done in partnership with the community.

Centro SOL pediatricians also realized that summers are difficult for adolescent immigrants, many of whom can’t afford summer camps and are not eligible for work programs. Thanks to local philanthropists, Polk and colleagues added a free summer program for middle and high schoolers that includes English classes and activities such as field trips to The Walters Art Museum or Patterson Park swimming pool to enable youth to better know their new community. Upon completion of the program, students receive back-to-school supplies as well as a nominal stipend based on their attendance. Polk hopes to expand the program with scholarships to other local camps.

“We’re just starting our last year of seed funding and trying to determine what will come next,” Polk says of Centro SOL. “It’s been a very busy four years so far and successful in coalition-building and in providing direct service to the community.”

For more information, see jhcentrosol.org. –Karen Blum