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St. David’s Center for Child and Family Development 

The Medica Foundation awarded a three-year strategic grant to St. David’s Center to serve Somali families. This initiative focuses on addressing the needs of the Somali community to support their children and respond to the significant rise in the diagnosis of autism in Somali children. 

The day treatment program at St. David's was culturally modified and expanded to a new urban site in Minneapolis to serve Somali children under age five. This culturally-specific community model is one of the first in the state. 

Center for Victims of Torture

Minnesota’s newest refugees, arriving from Bhutan, Burma, Ethiopia, Iraq and Somalia are often highly traumatized. The Center for Victims of Torture received a grant from the Medica Foundation to develop a new, culturally adaptable mental health screening tool to provide earlier assessment and access to mental health services for refugees relocating to Minnesota. 

The Center for Victims of Torture is collaborating with the Minnesota Department of Health to determine best practices for implementing this mental health screening tool throughout Minnesota. 

Comunidades Latinas Unidas En Servicio (CLUES)

CLUES received funding from the Medica Foundation to expand its domestic violence program to support Latino children who have witnessed domestic violence. CLUES offers assessments, support groups and individual mental health counseling for these children and their parents. 

The goal is to empower survivors to become self-sufficient and make their homes violence-free. Support groups break the isolation experienced by survivors and help participants develop a positive, social support network with families with whom they share language and immigrant experiences.