National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month Planning Webinar—June 5, 2012

July is National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month which offers organizations of all types and sizes a wonderful opportunity to create mental health awareness in diverse communities. This year we mark the 5th year Anniversary of this effort and our fourth year partnering with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) to celebrate it. Along the way, different organizations have hosted a variety of events and activities in communities across the country. Join the celebration this year and bring much needed information to your community! In order to help you get started and to share ideas of activities you could implement, we will be hosting a planning webinar on Tuesday, June 5, 2012 1:00-2:00 pm Eastern Time. This webinar will provide strategies, tips and ideas you could use to mark the month. It will focus on social media related activities and on activities you could host at the community level. This will provide a broad array of options that you could implement. You will hear from people who have successfully implemented celebration activities before and who will share lessons learned. Here are a few ways you can get involved:

• Register for the webinar.
• Share your story on the National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month Facebook page.
• Tweet using the hashtag #MinorityMentalHealth
• Read more about National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month on the NAMI website.

Presenters:

Yolonda Clay, M.S. is the Multicultural Outreach Coordinator for NAMI Lexington, Kentucky. After coming to NAMI through the Family-to-Family program in 2006, Yolonda continued involvement by attending and facilitating support groups, teaching Family-to-Family and becoming an In Our Own Voice presenter. She helped establish NAMI Lexington’s Multicultural Action Committee (known as the MAC DIVAS and DADIS) and continues to strive to bring a diverse face to mental health in Kentucky through various multicultural and faith outreach and advocacy initiatives. Yolonda is also a KY Peer Support Specialist and a QPR Gatekeeper “Suicide Prevention” trainer.

Factsheet, Discrimination Survey: LGBT Populations in the National Healthcare Disparities Report

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered individuals (LGBT) experience differences in receipt of health care services and are sometimes denied services. This fact sheet summarizes key findings from the National Healthcare Disparities Report (NHDR) related to health care for the LGBT population.

Key Findings

• Transgender people are more likely to be uninsured and less likely to have employer-based health insurance than the general population.
• Half of transgender people postponed care when sick or injured and postponed preventive health care due to cost. Among uninsured transgender people, 88% postponed care due to cost.
• About 30% of transgender people postponed care when sick or injured and postponed preventive health care due to discrimination and disrespect by providers. Female-to-male transgender people were most likely to postpone care due to discrimination.
• One in five transgender people has been denied services by a doctor or other provider due to their gender. Racial and ethnic minority transgender people are more likely to be denied services.

Background

• The 2011 NHDR begins tracking of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) populations as one of these priority populations.
• Due to lack of data availability in Federal surveys, the 2011 NHDR includes an excerpt from the National Transgender Discrimination Survey Report.
• More information can be found in the full report by the National Center for Transgender Equality and National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Download the factsheet (pdf).

National Prevention Week is May 20 - 26: Participant Toolkit

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has released a National Prevention Week Participant Toolkit. The toolkit equips communities with information and resources for planning an event to help prevent substance abuse and promote mental, emotional, and behavioral wellness. Includes event ideas, budgeting tips, fact sheets, promotional tools, and additional resources. The toolkit is tailored for family & advocates, public officials, prevention professionals, community coalitions, non-profits and faith-based organizations, and educators.

National Prevention Week is May 20 -- 26, 2012. The theme for this year’s celebration is – We are the ones. How are you taking action? – gets at the heart of what we know works in preventing substance abuse and promoting mental, emotional, and behavioral well-being. Prevention and promotion involve many small, everyday actions – such as volunteering, participating in community organizations, and talking to your kids and neighbors – which together add up to healthier and more vibrant communities. This year we are asking everyone – health service providers, addiction and mental health experts, community-based organizations, youth-serving organizations, community leaders, faith-based organizations, school leadership, and others – to reflect on these actions and to answer questions as individuals and as a community:

• What are you doing to prevent substance abuse and promote emotional well-being?
• What can your community do?
• How will you make it a reality?

In the National Prevention Week 2012 Toolkit, you will find everything you need to plan and hold an event that fits the needs of your particular organization and community while strengthening and creating community partnerships. Check out the “Resources and References” section for more information about issues that may be of particular importance to your organization – like substance abuse and mental health – as well as great organizations and online resources you can turn to for ideas and assistance.

Download the toolkit (pdf).

 

Asian American Mental Health: Culture Matters

Erica Mu was awarded a California Endowment Health Journalism fellowship to take a closer look at mental health from an Asian American perspective. She has spent the past six months reporting on this topic and has a series on KALW, San Francisco's local radio, called “Asian American Mental Health: Inside Out.”. Some excerpts from the interview:

ERICA MU: Well, I think the real challenge, especially as a member of the Asian American community, is avoiding stereotypes. The last thing I’d want to do is claim that there is a link between ethnicity and mental health. But what I’ve learned through all my interviews is that culture matters.....

ERICA MU: “Asian American” refers to 50-plus, very diverse sub-groups. So when it comes to mental health, approaching Asian Americans as one group is problematic. For example, if you look at the data for the group as a whole, Asian Americans look really healthy – they register lower rates of depression and overall suicide, and they don’t utilize treatment as much as other ethnic populations. But when you zoom in, it’s clear that the data isn’t reflecting the realities many sectors of this community face.....

Listen to the full interview on the KALW website. Read the transcript of the interview.

The Hispanic Stress Inventory - Adolescent Version: A Culturally Informed Psychosocial Assessment

Hispanic adolescents experience significant health disparities and are exposed to intense contextual challenges. The purpose of the study titled The Hispanic Stress Inventory - Adolescent Version: A Culturally Informed Psychosocial Assessment, was to develop an instrument that would be valuable to both professionals and researchers who practice and conduct research with foreign-born and U.S.- born Hispanic adolescents. The authors aimed to establish the psychometric properties and factor structure of the Hispanic Stress Inventory – Adolescents, a culturally informed stress assessment specifically tailored to Hispanic adolescents. The study was published in the journal Psychological Assessment.

The study yielded eight factors for stress -- Family Economic Stress, Acculturation-Gap Stress, Culture and Educational Stress, Immigration-Related Stress, Community and Gang-Related Stress, Discrimination Stress, Family and Drug-Related Stress, and Family Immigration Stress.

Read the full text of the study (pdf).

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