Community Initiatives

Embracing a mission to stimulate both personal growth and community transformation

My commitment to initiatives that improve the lives of people of color and underserved communities and to closing the gap between culturally informed research, program development, and clinical practice has led me to hold roles as co-investigator for the MGH Center of Excellence for Psychosocial and Systemic Research and Research, co-investigator and interventionist for a teen resiliency program at MGH’s Scientific Projects to Accelerate Research and Collaboration, and as a Clinical Consultant to MGH’s Resilience Program where I have played a critical role in launching an emotional leadership skills groups.

I have also held roles as consultant to other clinical and research programs seeking to spearhead efforts to bring evidenced-based practices and science-driven skills to organizations and communities. Two of these roles were held at MGH’s Community Psychiatry Program for Research in Implementation and Dissemination of Evidenced-Based Treatments (PRIDE) team. One of these roles was involved qualitative research for an evidenced based school research project and the other was as a group coach for PRIDE’s Training Institute’s Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) based TEB (Thoughts, Emotions, Behavior) curriculum.

Given my passion for equitable health care and education, including particular interests in destigmatizing mental health and helping increase access to quality care, I have been a frequent guest speaker for several media outlets (radio, television, online) and co-hosted several Latinx local and international radio and social media programs where I talk about issues related to mental health. Most recently (2021) I was a ongoing guest speaker for El Planeta’s (Boston’s largest Latinx newspaper) social media outlets where I created videos discussing topics related to mental health for the Spanish speaking Latinx community.

And, finally, my latest project (2020-2021) was an online platform, Latinx Salud Mental (Latinx Mental Health), where I seeked to increase awareness around issues related to mental health by creating content and holding interviews with mental health professionals and organizationsto creating an open dialogue about mental health within the Latinx community.

More Information:

Boston College Graduate School of Social Work

https://www.bc.edu/content/bc-web/schools/ssw/faculty-research/faculty-directory/ylira-pimentel.html

MA Community Health Workers (facilitated workshop)

https://www.nephtc.org/enrol/index.php?id=199

Massachusetts General Hospital- PRIDE

https://www.massgeneral.org/psychiatry/research/community-psychiatry-pride

Massachusetts General Hospital- Resilience and Prevention Program (RAPP)

https://www.resilienceandprevention.com/adolescents

Massachusetts General Hospital- Center Of Excellence for Psychosocial and Systemic Research (COE)

https://www.massgeneral.org/psychiatry/research/center-of-excellence-for-psychosocial-and-systemic-research

Community-Based Resilience Training for Adolescents: A training program to encourage emotional resilience building (COE)