Our Team
Dra. Ruth Zúñiga
Executive Director & Co-Founder
Dr. Ruth Zúñiga has a PhD in clinical and community psychology with a rural and indigenous emphasis from the University of Alaska. She has been working in collaboration with community-based organizations and community brokers such as promotores de salud, community health workers, and community leaders to address the mental and emotional health needs of the Latinx community. She has developed and managed multiple community-driven programs and grants focused on “bringing mental health” to the Latinx community, removing stigma and supporting mental health access and utilization of services by underserved communities. Dr. Zúñiga serves on several boards of directors and advisory boards of Latinx community-based organizations in Oregon. Dr. Zúñiga has been teaching, researching, consulting, and presenting on the subject of Latinx mental health and wellness and program evaluation for 10 years. She has been providing culturally grounded mental health services for over 15 years in the areas of resiliency, immigration, healing and trauma informed care, chronic disease management, and overall mental health concerns. She is a former associate professor, and founder of Sabiduría: Latinx Psychology Emphasis at Pacific University, an academic and clinical program focused on training culturally informed masters and doctoral level clinicians to work with the Latinx community. She is a licensed psychologist and serves as a senior health advisor for the Oregon Health Authority in the Covid Response and Recovery Unit.
ruth@raicesdebienestar.org
Bonnie Lerner, MPH
Programs and Operations Director & Co-Founder
Bonnie began her career in mental health case management, then supported policy and program implementation in Oregon communities to mitigate the inequitable impacts of tobacco for those experiencing mental illness and substance use disorders. For the last six years, she has worked in health systems to advance the role of traditional health workers and cultural brokers, and has managed community partnerships and community benefit investments to address mental health and substance use disorder disparities. She now brings her passion for program development and administration as the co-founder of Raíces de Bienestar. Bonnie grew up in the rural southern California desert, which instilled a deep commitment to equity, sense of community, and a personal and professional passion to improve mental health outcomes. Bonnie moved to the Portland area in 2004 and was the first woman in her family to go to college. She has a Master’s in Public Health Management and Policy from Portland State University. She deeply believes and embodies that what’s personal is public health and dedicates herself to working alongside the community to address systemic barriers and build upon assets to catalyze healing and transformation. She has relied on traditional health workers herself and has ten years of recovery from drugs and alcohol.
bonnie@raicesdebienestar.org
Fabiola Arreola-Morales
Promotora de Salud
Fabiola graduated as a Health Promoter over 10 years ago and since then, she has collaborated in several projects. She is always looking for ways in which the community has access to fundamental medical services and through this time she has completed several training related to health, bringing her knowledge to the community. Fabiola has a certificate as a Medical Receptionist and trained in the area of mental health with Dr. Ruth Zúñiga and the students of Pacific University. From that training she discovered her passion for helping the community have access to mental and emotional health. For her personally, it is very important to be able to talk about mental health and inform the community about available resources they can access. Fabiola is originally from Michoacan, Mexico and was the first in her family to emigrate to this country.
fabiola@raicesdebienestar.org
Daisy bueno, phd
Clinical Director
Daisy Bueno has a PhD in School Psychology from Illinois State University. She is originally from the Chicago area and moved to the Portland area in order to pursue mentorship and supervision in culturally informed liberatory practices from Dr. Zuniga. With the support and guidance of mentors in the field, Dr. Bueno has developed a strong connection to community-centered and accessible approaches to mental health. She has been working with the Latinx/e community and communities of color for over 5 years. Dr. Bueno has experience providing individual, family and group therapy for children and adults as well as developing community spaces dedicated to learning, processing and overall empowerment. In congruence with her community centered approach to healing, Dr. Bueno also has a strong passion for engaging in consultation, teaching, and collaboration with colleagues engaging in systems level work. She has experience supervising students entering the field of psychology. Dr. Bueno is currently supporting our clinical efforts at Raíces de Bienestar and supervising our clinical team. She is also be supporting individuals affected by the illegal marijuana and hemp industry through our clinical and liberation efforts.
daisy@raicesdebienestar.org
gladys alvarado-martinez, BA
Program Manager-Community Liberation Programs
Gladys Alvarado-Martinez received her Bachelor’s of Science in Social Work from Warner Pacific College in 2017 and has been a leader in the Latinx community for many years. She is a first generation Mexican-American, Portland native, mother, wife and oldest of four. She deems herself a Promotora since birth and has been actively involved in her community in various capacities ever since she could remember; volunteering alongside her mom and siblings in community events. In 2011 she took her first Community Health Worker Training and has never looked back. She has used her education and lived experience to support community leaders, families and children to grow and prosper through self-sustainability, resilience and advocacy. Her previous work at Latino Network focused on leading their community health workers program, amongst others. She has worked alongside her family, community leaders and colleagues to bring access to services to the Latinx Community in mental and physical health, health literacy, equity and inclusion, advocacy, leadership, curriculum development, facilitation, mentorship, childhood development and parenthood. She actively seeks new opportunities to learn and has a wide array of certifications and training in the areas of public health and education. She is extremely honored and excited to be part of the Raices de Bienestar team and work towards improving the wellbeing of the Latinx community in Oregon.
gladys@raicesdebienestar.org
Ruby Cabrera, BA
Project Assistant
Ruby Cabrera received her Bachelors of science in Sociology from Sacramento State University in 2019. She is a first generation Mexican- American and was the first in her family to attend college. After graduating, she worked as a legal assistant at an immigration law firm where she realized her passion in life was helping her community. In 2021, she transitioned into nonprofit work. Ruby is passionate about mental health advocacy and believes that everyone should have access to mental health services. She is excited to be a part of Raíces de Bienestar and be a part of empowering the latinx community here in Oregon.
ruby@raicesdebienestar.org
dra. alejandra ferris
Contracted Clinic Practice Manager
Alejandra Ferris has a PsyD in Clinical Psychology from Pacific University with an emphasis on health settings as well as Latinx psychology. While in graduate school, she was a member of Sabiduria and began working with Dr. Zúñiga to help create an emotional health and wellness workshop series aimed at promotes de salud to combat mental health stigma in the Latinx community living in the Portland, OR metro area. She completed her internship at the Southwest Consortium/New Mexico VA Healthcare System in Albuquerque and is currently completing a post-doctoral fellowship at Baylor Scott and White Health in Temple, TX. As a bilingual and bicultural clinician, Dr. Ferris is passionate about bringing mental health to the people and ensuring that services are appropriate and accessible to our community’s underserved groups. Dr. Ferris was born in Venezuela and raised in Miami, FL. Growing up in a predominantly Latinx immigrant community made Dr. Ferris feel empowered by her Latina identity her entire life and provided her with the lived experience and understanding of nuances and idiosyncrasies of culture that are so often overlooked in psychological services and health settings in general. Because of this, she strives to educate and encourage her colleagues on how to reflect on their diverse identities, how their identities influence the services they provide in clinical settings, and how to creatively reduce systemic barriers to ensure equitable access to care for all patients served in the health settings she works in.
alejandra@raicesdebienestar.org
JoAnna sendejo, MA
Contracted Project Support
JoAnna Sendejo is a 4th year PsyD student at Pacific University’s School of Graduate Psychology where her studies are in child psychology. JoAnna is also a member of Sabiduría, Pacific’s Latinx psychology emphasis, where she met Dra. Zúñiga and found a passion in supporting mental health outreach events targeted at increasing mental health awareness and dismantling systemic barriers to equitable mental health services for the Latinx community. JoAnna grew up in South Texas, in the Mexico-U.S. borderland known as The Rio Grande Valley. After graduating with her undergraduate degree in Psychology, she worked in community mental health in rural Texas as a caseworker for two years. It was there that JoAnna became aware of the need for accessible services and linguistically and culturally sensitive mental health professionals, especially for the Latinx community and was inspired to return to graduate school so that she could serve her community as a bilingual and bicultural clinician. Currently, her primary areas of interests lie in trauma and stressor-related disorders, intergenerational trauma, and caregiver-child attachment. Her career goals include offering empowering, preventative, and trauma and culturally informed mental health services to underserved communities through outreach and accessible services.
The Community Advisory Committee (CAC) of Raíces de Bienestar (Raíces) is composed of Latinx community health leaders, promoters and workers. It is intended to inform all Raíces de Bienestar activities, programs, services and projects, ensuring that RdB programs are culturally appropriate, based on the needs of the Latinx community and focused on community strengths and resilience.
Community Advisory Committee
Edith Arriaga-Flores is a health promoter, native Peruvian, mother of two children and wife. She trained as a health promoter through her parish. Edith's motivation and passion is her family and community, and she volunteers in several organizations and activities in her community. She has trained and provided several educational workshops on various topics, including mental health. Edith is grateful to be a participant in the Raíce’s Community Advisory Committee, for in this organization she has seen that through “speaking in simple language about mental health in our communities and understanding that we are not alone, barriers and stigma surrounding mental health can be broken.” She hopes that through this committee she will be able to continue her commitment to serve and meet more people, sharing and learning more every day. In her free time Edith enjoys walking with her two dogs in the park.
edith arriaga-flores
Delfina Andrade is a certified health promoter and worked for 6 years at the Oregon Latino Health Coalition as a community health worker. She is a board member of the Community Alliance of Tenants and is currently engaged in her business in the city of Hillsboro. Her passion is to support and advocate for her community. Her reason to join the Raíces Community Advisory Committee is to bring her knowledge about the community and its needs, so that the programs of this organization can provide the best service and support to the Latinx community. In her free time, Delfina enjoys spending time with her family and walking to the beach.
Delfina Andrade
Veronica Gallardo Salmeron is a certified health promoter from Guerrero, Mexico who studied at Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham, Oregon. She has experience providing training and working with the Latinx community with the Hispanic Catholic Program where she serves as a Health Promoter. Being part of the Community Advisory Committee in Raíces de Bienestar has been very important to Veronica, as her passion is to educate the community about the importance of preventive health care, nutrition, exercise and mental health, as well as informing and connecting them with resources.Veronica believes that self-care is an important part of health and well-being. His favorite activities are spending time with her family, enjoying nature and discovering new places.
Veronica Gallardo Salmeron
Adriana Lopez Garcia was born in Oaxaca, Mexico and moved to the United States more than 20 years ago and is a certified health promoter. Since then, she has worked to support the Latinx community in how to access education, health and social services available in the area. Adriana currently works at EPHC in the development department supporting bringing more services and resources to the community. Adriana decided to join the Community Advisory Committee because she has seen the positive impact that community talks have on the community. Additionally, through these talks we can combat the stigma of mental health in the community while recognizing and promoting strengths of our traditions and ancestral values. In her free time she enjoys swimming and hiking with her family.
Adriana Lopez Garcia
Maria Samayoa es Guatemalteca and a promotora de salud de la Iglesia. She is registered with the State of Oregon as a Community Health Worker (CHW) and has volunteered as a Health Promoter since 2008. Her regular job is also serving the community as a community liaison person for a high school in Oregon. There she supports youth, families and school staff, facilitating communication to help students achieve academic success. Her motto is: “Learn to share, and you too will receive the benefits”. Maria knows firsthand the needs of her community and therefore decided to be part of the Raíces de Bienestar’s Community Advisory Committee, because she believes that together with this committee and professionals who have the same interests, you can improve the lives of individuals and together create healthy communities. His hobbies include singing, connecting with her family, and playing board games with her family.
Maria Samayoa
Rosareli Sotelo De Los Angeles is originally from Guerrero, Mexico. She has lived in Oregon for 16 years, with 13 of those years as a farm worker. She has a great passion for serving the community, and being a voice for those who have been excluded or neglected, such as Latinx fieldworkers. She has done volunteer work through organizations such as Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN). Her interests in joining the Raíces Community Advisory Committee are due to her passion and motivation in learning about mental health, bringing ideas to the committee, and bringing resources to his community. Her favorite self-care activities are walking and listening to music.
Rosareli Sotelo De Los Angeles
Zoraya Uder was born in Salem, OR and is a Certified Health Promoter working for the organization Families in Action. Zoraya loves working with the community and providing education about better health and lifestyle. She volunteers at parish events and many other community activities. Her motivation to be part of the Raíces Community Advisory Committee is to learn how to help the community identify mental health challenges and provide resources and information. She also wants to help inform Raíces about what the community needs, what they are facing in their daily lives, and how to find ways to meet those needs. Her desire is to act as a bridge between the two, because “she is from the community to serve her community” In her free time, she enjoys nature, reading and cooking.
Zoraya Uder
Board of Directors
Leda Garside
Board President
Genevieve Ellis
Treasurer
Mandy Davis
Secretary
Tuality Healthcare
Washington County Public Health
Trauma-Informed Oregon | Portland State University
Daysi Bedolla Sotelo
Oregon Health Equity Alliance
Kristty Zamora-Polanco
Innovator Agent | Oregon Health Authority
Reach out to our team
Send us a message for general information about Raíces, including opportunities to partner and how to support our work.
