Latino Health Equity Consulting
"Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world."
- Dolores Huerta
Specialized Consulting for Organizations Serving Latino & Immigrant Communities
Building Stronger Connections with Latino and Immigrant Communities
Marina Kerlow is a bilingual Latina therapist and organizational consultant with a Master of Science in Couple and Family Therapy from the University of Maryland and peer-reviewed research in Latinx family dynamics, trauma, and resilience. She has partnered with clinics, nonprofits, and community agencies to dismantle systemic barriers, redesign service delivery, and train clinical teams — producing measurable improvements in Latino client engagement, attendance, and retention. She has actively worked in Latino mental health care, research, consulting, and advocacy for over 6 years.
My consultation focuses on helping organizations move from compliance to connection.
I partner with clinics, community agencies, hospital systems, nonprofits, and corporations committed to closing the gap in care for Latino and immigrant communities.
The process
-
Step 1
Reach out via the contact form to share your organization's needs and schedule a discovery call.
-
Step 2
We identify the gaps, goals, and scope of work together and I develop a customized consulting plan.
-
Step 3
I deliver the work — whether that's a training, assessment, materials adaptation, or ongoing consultation — and provide follow-up recommendations.
Consulting Services
-
I assess how your current services are — or are not — reaching Spanish-speaking and immigrant clients and deliver concrete, actionable recommendations. At the Clinic for Healthy Families (University of Maryland), I helped transform a program with 0% retention among Spanish-speaking clients into one that meaningfully engaged and retained Latino families.
-
I review and adapt intake forms, consent documents, and treatment protocols to be linguistically accurate, culturally resonant, and accessible to immigrant populations.
-
I design and deliver trainings for clinical teams and healthcare providers on culturally responsive, trauma-informed care with Latino and immigrant populations — drawing directly from active research and frontline clinical experience.
-
At community mental health clinics, I have helped design outreach and service delivery for the Latino immigrant population, significantly increased client attendance, and built multi-disciplinary care models connecting mental health, medical, school, and community systems.
-
I am available for keynotes, staff trainings, and clinical workshops on culturally responsive care with Latino and immigrant populations, mental health stigma reduction, immigration stress and acculturation, and supporting Latino families with LGBTQ+ or neurodivergent members.
A Track Record of Impact…
At the Clinic for Healthy Families at the University of Maryland, I identified critical gaps in language access and cultural responsiveness and advocated for systemic change — helping transform a program that had failed to retain a single Spanish-speaking client into one that could genuinely serve this population. This included translating all paperwork into Spanish for the first time, advocating for Spanish-speaking clinical supervision, and reducing technology and literacy barriers for clients who had been on the waitlist for over a year. Past speaking engagements include a training for Treehouse Child Advocacy Center in Montgomery County on trauma-informed and affirming care for LGBTQ+ youth with cultural considerations for Latinx families.
I am a published researcher with co-authored work in Oxford Bibliographies, Frontiers in Psychology, and Journal of Family Issues, focused on Latinx family dynamics, trauma, and the mental health impact of systemic stressors on immigrant communities. I am an alumna and former Mentor of the AAMFT Minority Fellowship Program — a nationally competitive fellowship for emerging leaders in culturally responsive mental health. As a Bilingual Couples Expert Facilitator for the TOGETHER/JUNTOS Program at the University of Maryland, I delivered relationship and financial education workshops to Latino couples, coaching families on communication, stress management, and building stronger partnerships. My graduate thesis — ¡Hay que hablar sobre esto! [We Need to Talk About This] — examined contraceptive and consent knowledge, sexual self-efficacy, and psychological distress among 474 Latino adolescents, contributing original research to the field of Latino adolescent sexual health.
Research-Backed Expertise
Also Offering: Immigration Evaluations
As part of my commitment to immigrant communities, I also conduct comprehensive, bilingual psychological evaluations in support of immigration cases — including Asylum, Extreme Hardship Waivers, T Visas, U Visas, and VAWA petitions. These evaluations are conducted with cultural attunement and compassion, following clinical and ethical standards.