Afghan Mental Health & Wellness Program (Western New York)
Our Purpose
Our program offers culturally responsive, language-accessible mental health and wellness support that honors Afghan traditions, values, and community strengths. We work alongside the community to help navigate stress, trauma, and major life changes with dignity and respect. We connect individuals to trusted counselors, community resources, and group supports.
Accessible, culturally informed mental health and wellness support for Afghan individuals and families in Western New York.
What Our Program Offers
Oral History Project
The oral history project center's Afghan community members, who share their life experiences in their own voices. These stories will be displayed on the Downtown Medical Campus, which will produce a resource for hearing community member perspectives firsthand and an example of the value of including cultural awareness in medical training and practice.
Provider Training and Cultural Humility
These trainings equip clinicians with the knowledge and skills needed to deliver culturally responsive care to Afghan refugees. Developed and delivered in partnership with The Afghan Clinic, this training combines clinical expertise with lived experience to deepen understanding and improve care.
Community Mental Health Worker Program
The CMHW Program trains trusted members of the Afghan community to serve as peer leaders, advocates, and connectors to care. Through a structured training series, including Motivational Interviewing, Mental Health First Aid, and Interpreter, participants gain practical skills to support emotional well-being, recognize signs of distress, and guide others toward appropriate services.
Direct Mental Health & Wellness Services
We provide culturally and linguistically tailored mental health and wellness services for Afghan individuals and families in Western New York. Our approach combines community-based care with clinical support, including workshops, Healing Circles, and short-term therapy. We prioritize gender-concordant care and practical supports, such as childcare and transportation, to reduce barriers and promote well-being.
Sofreh Salamati Workshops
In partnership with Afghan Clinic, we are bringing Sofreh Salamati workshops to the Western New York Afghan community. This culturally grounded model blends traditional Afghan women's gatherings with health education, creating a welcoming and trusted space for learning, reflection, and connection.
Our History
Community Health Speaks was founded to bridge the gap between academic medicine and underserved communities in Western New York, with a focus on culturally responsive, community-driven health education. Since its inception, CHS has worked closely with Afghan families in Buffalo to address barriers to care, including language, access, and cultural stigma. Our early efforts centered on grassroots, community-based programming. In 2024–2025, we hosted Afghan women's health events at the University at Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, creating safe, women-only spaces that integrated language support, childcare, and culturally concordant clinicians. These sessions emphasized preventive care and empowered participants to better understand and navigate the U.S. healthcare system.
Building on this momentum, we expanded into mental health and emotional wellness programming, including workshops such as Building Emotional Wellness and Resilience. These initiatives combined education with dialogue, addressing stigma and fostering trust through culturally grounded approaches. Our work has also extended beyond the local community to national conversations on health equity. Through presentations at forums such as the Icahn School of Medicine Conference on Health Sciences Education, we have shared our model of community-engaged, culturally responsive care—centering refugee communities as partners and experts in their own health.
Together, these efforts have laid the foundation for a sustained, community-rooted approach to health and wellness. This program builds directly on that work, expanding from individual events into a comprehensive model that integrates education, capacity building, and direct mental health services for Afghan families across Western New York.