Understanding Latino Parents’ Child Mental Health Literacy: Todos a bordo/All Aboard

Objective: This article describes Phase 1 of a pilot that aims to develop, implement, and test an intervention to educate and simultaneously engage highly stressed Latino parents in child mental health services. A team of Spanish-speaking academic and community co-investigators developed the intervention using a community-based participatory research approach and qualitative methods. Method: Through focus groups, the team identified parents’ knowledge gaps and their health communication preferences. Results: Latino parents from urban communities need and welcome child mental health literacy interventions that integrate printed materials with videos, preferably in their native language, combined with guidance from professionals. Conclusion: A 3-minute video in Spanish that integrates education entertainment strategies and a culturally relevant format was produced as part of the intervention to educate and simultaneously engage highly stressed Latino parents in child mental health care. It is anticipated that the intervention will positively impact service use among this group.