Aimee Hilado, PhD, LCSW

Aimee Hilado is an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. Her research centers on the impact of immigration trauma, early childhood/adult mental health, and culturally sensitive clinical practice for refugee and immigrant populations. She seeks to humanize the complexity of the refugee/immigrant experience and provide guidelines regarding the clinical application of evidence-based interventions with global populations through community-engaged research partnerships. The overarching goal of her work is to increase immigration trauma research, translate scientific rigor into real-world community mental health practice, and use research to influence immigration and health policy on local and national levels.

Professor Hilado is an applied researcher using mixed methods designs as well as cross-sectional and comparative methods to explore mental health outcomes among forcibly displaced refugees and immigrants resettled in the United States. Her research program is informed by nearly 16 years of clinical experience providing therapy and accompaniment supports to arrivals across the lifespan (pregnancy to older adulthood) from five different global regions: Central/Eastern Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. She has a particular interest in clinical practice with newcomer families with very young children (birth to age 5), unaccompanied children in U.S. residential programs (age 2-17 years), and conducting forensic psychological assessments with asylum seekers; each area of practice informing future research directions.

Current projects include Professor Hilado's efforts examine the conceptual process and empirical findings related to the Refugee Accompaniment and Mental Healthcare Model she developed and directed in a community-based refugee resettlement program (2011-2021). She is examining the trauma-informed, culturally-sensitive, and developmentally-appropriate strategies that were used to promote mental wellbeing, sense of belonging, and authentic self-reliance among new arrivals along with addressing the intergenerational impact of immigration trauma. Related to this work is an additional research project focusing on the interplay and consequences of pre- and post-refugee resettlement policies and organizational practices that impact individual, family and community functioning with specific attention to mental health outcomes using longitudinal program and clinical data from her former program.

Professor Hilado is also developing a trauma-informed curriculum to prepare a workforce to address secondary traumatic stress and burnout among refugee resettlement staff. She is also developing and implementing a multi-tier mental health support plan, in collaboration with Illinois Department of Human Services, Lurie Children's Hospital, and the Coalition for  Immigrant Mental Health, to address the mental health needs of asylum-seeking migrants who have been forcibly relocated to Chicago as part of Texas Gov. Abbott's Operation Lone Star busing program. Her team will be conducting a study to examine the multi-level, multi-agency mental health response and the efficacy of their mental health capacity-building efforts. 

Her work has been published in Psychological Services, Journal of Early Childhood Research, and Early Childhood Research and Practice. She also contributed to chapters in Refugee Mental Health (American Psychological Association, 2021) and Migrant Workers: Social Identity, Occupational Challenges, and Health Practices (NOVA Science Publishers, 2016). Her most recent edited book is Models for Practice with Immigrants and Refugees: Collaboration, Cultural Awareness, and Integrative Theory (Sage Publications, 2017).