Marlena Cesar-Mendez
'15MSW, Founder at LatinX Association of Social Workers and Trafficking Intervention Project Advocate at Brigham & Women's Hospital
Marlena Cesar-Mendez, MSW, LICSW is a bilingual, multicultural clinical social worker with several years of experience and leadership in the field. Her experience includes working with children, youth, families and adults in medical outpatient, medical inpatient, school-based, and community-based settings. Marlena is the founder of the Latinx Association of Social Workers (LASW), an association of Latinx social workers and social justice advocates committed to decolonizing, bringing change, and using an anti-racist frame in order to heal our communities and reclaim our roots. As a Latina she is committed to dismantling oppressive systems by advocating for racial and health equity.
In her current role as the Social Work Advocate for the Adelante Moving Forward with Hope Program, Marlena works with a team of social workers and a peer support specialist who provide trauma-and survivor-informed care to victims and survivors of human trafficking. The Adelante program is an Anti-Trafficking Program based out of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston, MA.
Marlena participated in the Spring 2021 Mentors-in-Residence panel, Leveraging the Power of Our Voices: Antiracism in Action, and spoke at a private class session for ENGL 220/GCS 406: Feminism and Literature.