Listening to the Haitian Community: What Andrins Renaudin Teaches Us About Mental Health, Stigma, and Possibility

When community health worker Andrins Renaudin sits down with Haitian parents in shelters, churches, schools, or living rooms, she often begins by naming the quiet truth everyone already knows: talking about mental health is hard. As she explains, “Mental health… is a very scary topic for many.”

That fear doesn’t come from a lack of love. It comes from history, culture, and lived experience. Many Haitian families have grown up with spiritual explanations—ideas of possession, curses, or danger—that shape how they understand emotional or behavioral challenges. Without accessible language or trusted information, parents may interpret everything from learning disabilities to autism to depression as the same kind of “mental illness,” something to hide or fear.

Andrins steps into this gap with extraordinary clarity and patience. She doesn’t begin by correcting belief. Instead, she widens it. She brings information “in a soft way,” as she puts it, “not trying to remove their beliefs… but giving them a different perspective.”

That shift in tone changes everything. Parents who might not answer a school’s phone call or respond to a doctor’s note begin to ask questions, voice concerns, and seek help. They begin to imagine something many have never been told is possible: “Helping them understand that their kids can succeed, even with a diagnosis,” she says, “was very important to me.”

Part of her work is linguistic. “There are a lot of terms… they’re not translated in Haitian Creole,” she explains, “so they need to be explained.” But it is also emotional. She builds trust in communities where parents often work multiple jobs, carry enormous responsibility, and hesitate to be seen as struggling.

The impact is profound. More parents are walking into doctor’s offices asking, “My child is doing this… what do you think it is?” More are learning that what they once feared is manageable. And more are recognizing that asking for help is not weakness but care.

How GPS Can Support This Work

GPS Group Peer Support was created for exactly these kinds of communities—places where stigma, fear, and isolation make it hard for families to seek support. What Andrins is already doing on the ground is deeply aligned with the GPS model:

• Meeting people where they are
• Honoring cultural context
• Using simple, accessible language
• Building community so families don’t feel alone
• Offering gentle education alongside emotional support

GPS offers a structured, trauma-informed group model that can strengthen and expand what leaders like Andrins have started. A GPS group provides a safe space where Haitian parents could come together, share their stories, learn practical skills in their own language, and support each other through the challenges of raising children with emotional or behavioral needs.

Our model is designed to adapt to culture, not overwrite it. Leaders like Andrins can take the GPS training, integrate their own expertise, and shape groups specifically for Haitian families—using the metaphors, examples, and language that resonate most.

GPS can also help connect parents to additional support, offer ongoing community care, and reduce the isolation that so often deepens stigma.

Moving Forward, Together

The Haitian community has extraordinary strength, resilience, and wisdom. What families need is not a new identity or a new belief system—they need tools, language, and support that respect who they already are.

Through the leadership of people like Andrins, and with GPS as a partner and resource, more Haitian parents can find a place where fear turns into understanding, silence turns into conversation, and the future of their children feels possible again.

Born and raised in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Andrins Renaudin joined her father in the United States in November of 2001 with her mother and younger sister. She is the founder of Cognitive Holistic Healing (CHH), a non-profit that provides mental health literacy for parents of Haitian descent with children with a registered mental health diagnosis. CHH also helps new Haitian immigrant parents navigate the school system enrollment process, in addition to linking them with professionals that would provide basic trauma-informed care. In the six years Andrins served on the Haitian-American Medical Association, she participated in health tours providing educational workshops on mental health for mostly adults in various local agencies such as churches, community centers and nursing homes that serve large populations in the Greater Boston area.

If you’re interested in learning how GPS can help you hold space for others while strengthening your own wellbeing, explore our upcoming trainings and support groups. Through MASStrong, many Massachusetts-based medical, behavioral health, and community care workers are eligible for free GPS training and organizational funding up to $10,000. Please visit our MASStrong program page and fill out our MASStrong Interest Form to learn more. You can also visit the GPS Store to explore our curriculum offerings, including free introductory sessions.