Finding Solutions in Student Voices: How Can School-Based Helping Professionals Support Latinx Youth?

Background and Purpose: Approximately one-fourth of U.S. public school students are Latinx, and their proportion is increasing. Latinx high schoolers face challenges, including poverty; limited college-going capital; acculturation and mental health concerns; language and immigration-related barriers; and a persistent achievement gap between themselves and their non-Latinx peers. School-based helping professionals, especially school counselors, social workers, and psychologists, are strategically positioned to connect with these youth. Despite these professionals’ potential to assist, Latinx students report negative interactions with them. To help professionals understand the multiple systemic hurdles these students face and therefore help more effectively, we reviewed the peer-reviewed literature for recommendations on how to support Latinx youth.

Methods: We undertook a scoping review (Levac et al., 2010) to locate guidance for school-based helping professionals working with Latinx high-school students. We searched English-language peer-reviewed articles (published 2010-2021), using thematic keywords: Latinx identities (e.g., Latina/o, Hispanic, Mexican, Colombian); high school (e.g., secondary education, adolescence); and helping professionals (e.g., school counselor, school social worker, school psychologist). Inclusion criteria required studies to: (1) include high school-based helping professionals in their sample populations; and (2) to provide recommendations for school-based helping professionals working with Latinx students. We paid close attention to Latinx student voices, highlighting the hurdles they reported and the recommendations they made.

Results: A total of 169 unduplicated studies were identified for possible inclusion: 118 were excluded during initial review, while 51 (30.2%) were retrieved for in-depth assessment; 16 (31.4%) met the inclusion criteria. 0nly 32% (n = 5) of the studies gathered data from both Latinx students and school-based helping professionals. Fourteen recommendations were identified: (1) engage in culturally responsive practice; (2) enhance students’ college-going capital; (3) involve the family; (4) act as change agents; (5) collaborate with school staff and community partners; (6) focus on relationship building with students; (7) recognize the wide-ranging effects of immigration policy on students; (8) promote students’ ethnic and cultural pride; (9) get culturally-specific training; (10) acknowledge the political and sociocultural climate; (11) provide mental health services; (12) convey high academic expectations; (13) meet informally; and (14) develop/tailor culturally-specific interventions. Overall, only one recommendation tallied was not mentioned by Latinx students: providing mental health services.

Conclusions and Implications: This study moves beyond the identification of problems in order to spotlight and disseminate solutions—most of which were identified by both Latinx youth and school-based helping professionals. Notably, only 16 studies published between 2010 and 2021 met our criteria for inclusion, and only five incorporated youth voices, which suggests an urgent need for more inclusive scholarship in this area. This study helps decolonize social work by foregrounding the needs of Latinx youth and empowering their helpers with solutions, all while highlighting the need to increase Latinx students’ involvement in research. We hope that school-based helping professionals, administrators, policymakers, and researchers will use this paper to advocate for changes in their practices in school and in our communities.