This Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month webinar will feature Dr. William Martinez from University of California, San Francisco to discuss strategies to reduce behavioral health disparities among ethnic minority youth, particularly Latinx and immigrant populations.
September 30, 2025 –The Center on Immigration and Child Welfare (CICW) is excited to share that the Walter S. Johnson Foundation has awarded funding for Empowering Child Welfare Practice at the Intersections of Immigration and Child Wellbeing, led by Dr. Kristina Lovato. This two-year initiative will partner with child welfare practitioners, legal service providers, and immigrant families to: conduct a comprehensive statewide needs assessment; develop and deliver evidence-based, trauma-informed trainings for up to 225 child welfare professionals; and produce a series of actionable practice briefs and peer reviewed publications. By centering the voices of directly impacted families and frontline practitioners, the project aims to close the gap between policy guidance and day-to-day implementation, ensuring culturally responsive, legally sound, and trauma-informed services for immigrant children and families across California. Stay tuned for opportunities to engage with the project’s trainings, practice briefs, and national presentations beginning in 2026.
The conference, with in-person and virtual options, will bring together leading experts, policymakers, attorneys, and advocates to engage in policy and legal analysis and discussion of some of the most important immigration issues that have surfaced in the U.S. policy debate.
This self-paced online training for child welfare professionals and other stakeholders draws from successful immigrant-serving child welfare models across the U.S. to address the unique challenges and opportunities that arise when working with immigrant children and families in the child welfare system. Three free Social Work CEUs are also available.
This panel, featuring CICW Director Kristina Lovato, will provide practical strategies for supporting immigrant families and children during increased immigration enforcement, covering topics like discussing raids with children, creating family preparedness plans, and accessing resources for the back-to-school season.
Organizations and individuals can submit comments to USCIS on two recent agency actions that harm youth with Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS): (1) a USCIS policy change that eliminates the SIJS Deferred Action Policy, and (2) proposed changes to Form G-325A that would eliminate requests for deferred action based on SIJS. The deadline for comments addressing #1 is July 7, 2025 11:59pm ET and for #2 is July 28, 2025 11:59pm ET.
The End SIJS Backlog Coalition is tracking implementation of USCIS’s deferred action policy for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) youth who are awaiting a visa to share general trends with the field and media and as part of advocacy efforts to end the SIJS backlog. Complete this form to report outcomes of SIJS deferred action-based work authorization requests (Form I-765, based on category (c)(14)).
Girasol has 3 upcoming trainings on topics related to working with immigrant populations, including:
In this webinar, Education for All Tennessee partners will share their lessons learned about how they defeated Anti-Plyler legislation.
This webinar will review updates on the current fight for unaccompanied children’s access to legal representation in immigration proceedings and the role of Child Advocates.
© 2026 CICW.