Caitlin Tromiczak (LICSW-C, LCSW-C) is a licensed clinical social worker who has worked with immigrant communities and the professionals who serve them for nearly 20 years. She is also a doctoral candidate in International Psychology at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. She has served in many roles including as a therapist, clinical supervisor, program manager, and professional development content creator and facilitator. Her areas of expertise include trauma and resilience, domestic violence, PTSD, depression, anxiety, grief, immigration and acculturation, torture, family separation in transnational families, and diversity, equity, & inclusion. She draws experience from her work with communities in the Washington DC area as well as abroad in El Salvador, Nicaragua, The Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, and India. With a humanistic approach to healing and serving, Caitlin strives to create and provide more culturally responsive and effective services and systems.

Blue Robin has over 10 years of experience creating visual messages that are engaging, clear and remembered. Blue believes that art has a significant influence in our lives. Blue’s wide range of artistic skills includes design, dance, photography, digital art, pencil and pen drawings, and painting.

In the last decade, he has been teaching art to inner-city youth, providing them with the opportunity to build confidence in a safe environment through art. He has developed curricula for artists of all ages and led classes in a variety of art forms including painting, drawing, photography, and graphic design.

As an artist, he is passionate about using art to inspire creativity and hone expression in young people. In 2020, Blue taught classes to a Hope Center designed art group intervention facilitated in a school setting. In addition to facilitating art interventions in group settings, he provides strategic art vision to Hope Center’s art based programs and training curriculum.

Janese Matos is a second-year graduate student in clinical mental health counseling at The Chicago School. Her mental health passion lies in supporting children and adolescents experiencing depression, anxiety, traumatic symptoms, and other mental health challenges, cope with their distress and to achieve crucial developmental and emotional milestones. With a deep understanding on healthy social and coping skills, she is committed to nurturing those strengths in her clients, working alongside with their families. Janese also has experience in community organizing, research and leading and supporting extracurricular community activities that span from identity to arts to sports. At the Hope Center, Janese provides short-term therapy to children and youth, facilitates expressive interventions support groups for teens, creates psychoeducational content for mental health awareness campaigns and provides programmatic support.

Elena Palermo (she/her) is a first-year graduate clinical social work student at Smith College School for Social Work. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Elena spent the last 8 years in Vermont devoted to advocating for food sovereignty and security, reflecting her passion for nurturing holistic well-being. Her path has also led her to embrace mindfulness and meditation, a journey deepened by her studies in the Integrating Mindfulness into Clinical Practice course guided by Dr. Tara Brach. As both a seasoned yoga practitioner and a certified yoga teacher, she believes in the profound connections between mind and body. Her career therapeutic aspirations include interlacing mindfulness-based interventions into a psychodynamic framework. Elena’s experience living abroad has strengthened her passion to work with the Latinx and other immigrant and refugee populations. At the Hope Center, Elena provides short-term therapy to youth, College-aged students, emerging adults, facilitates mindfulness and expressive intervention support groups, creates psychoeducational content for mental health awareness campaigns, and provides programmatic support.