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Dr. Ford-Paz has over 20 years of experience in community and school settings. Her work focuses on promoting health equity by increasing access to evidence-based and culturally attuned prevention and treatment interventions, building the capacity of community-based providers, and conducting community-engaged research. Dr. Ford-Paz has a longstanding interest in Latinx mental health, and engages in clinical work, research, and advocacy with Latinx and immigrant/refugee populations. Her expertise at the community level focuses on advocacy initiatives and building the capacity of non-mental health professionals to create welcoming environments and promote the emotional wellness of refugee/immigrant children and families. In her clinical work, Dr. Ford-Paz specializes in culturally attuned cognitive behavioral therapy and is a certified therapist and trainer for the Unified Protocols for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders in Children and Adolescents. In 2020, she co-founded the Forensic Assessment for Immigration Relief (FAIR) Clinic at Lurie Children’s to provide psychiatric and medical evaluations to minors seeking asylum or other forms of humanitarian relief.
Dr. Ford-Paz has received multiple philanthropic grants and published her work on community partnerships that engaged in participatory curriculum development work, staff training, and formative program evaluation. Dr. Ford-Paz co-chairs the Lurie Children’s Immigrant Family Learning Collaborative at Lurie Children’s and is on the Steering Committee of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant Mental Health and the Midwest Human Rights Consortium. She is also the Co-chair of the Mental Health and Wellness Subcommittee of the Chicago is With You Task Force in the Mayor’s Office of New Americans, tasked with operationalizing the Welcoming City ordinance in the City of Chicago.
Education: DePaul University, Chicago, IL, 2006 (PhD and MA in clinical psychology, child subspecialty); Columbia University Teachers College, New York, NY, 2000 (M.A. in Applied Psychology); Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain, 1997 (Diploma in Spanish Language and Culture); Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 1996 (B.A. in Psychology, B.M. in Music Education)
Postgraduate Training: Fellowship in child/adolescent Psychopathology, Brown Medical School, Emma Pendleton Bradley Hospital, Providence, RI, 2006-2007; Internship in clinical psychology, Boston Consortium - Boston Medical Center & Boston VA Hospital, Boston, MA, 2005-2006
Professional Organizations: National Latino Psychology Association; Society for Community Research and Action; Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies; Society for Prevention Research ; National Hispanic Science Network; Anxiety & Depression Association of America
See Northwestern University Faculty Profile >Research Interests: Immigrant and refugee child mental health; asylum evaluation; culturally attuned implementation of evidence-based interventions
