We're excited to announce that Josefina Castro is joining LSVAP as our bilingual Intake Specialist! We are so happy to have her on our team; welcome, Josefina!
With Josefina’s help, we can ensure that LSVAP will reach more immigrant survivors in rural Texas communities. As the bilingual intake specialist, she will be serving as the first point of contact with potential clients. She will work with the team to create streamlined and appropriate procedures to effectively connect clients---detained and not---to services.
Josefina started her work in this field by providing case management and advocacy services to adult trauma survivors. She has served survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, and abuse. In her work, she has focused on goals of empowerment, self-sufficiency, and independence by connecting clients to information regarding safety, housing, childcare, employment, legal services and many other community resources. A pivotal skill she has learned doing this work is the importance of addressing crisis and trauma while navigating through different systems, be it legal, or related to housing and/or healthcare.
Josefina has always felt comfortable working with immigrant populations as a daughter of immigrants herself. In college she worked with multiple nonprofit organizations completing legal intakes, helping immigrants apply for residency and naturalization, and doing advocacy work in support of unaccompanied minors.
Josefina holds a bachelor’s degree in Chicanx Studies from the University of California at Los Angeles. Her family is Peruvian and Salvadoran, she is a cat enthusiast, and loves spending time outside. Josefina is passionately committed to social justice and about advocating for a better world for all.