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“I’ve been struggling with my mental health since I was 10 or so,” said Sara, a petite 22-year-old who works as a teacher at a junior high school. Sara lives with her parents in a midsize city just southwest of Phoenix, where she was born and raised. Her mother came to the United States as a Cambodian refugee in the 70s—a process that forced her to “grow up faster than anyone should have to,” in Sara’s words. “She still has a lot of trauma to unpack.”

With an immigrant mother and an American-born white father, Sara spent much of her childhood struggling to find a sense of belonging. “The community I grew up in is mostly white and conservative, so there weren’t many people who looked like me, let alone who could relate to my experiences as the daughter of an immigrant,” Sara said.

Her mental health was never really a consideration for her mother—instead, trauma became a point of comparison. “Every time I tried to talk to my mom about [my mental health], the conversation would steer toward how I had nothing to be depressed about,” Sara said. “We are an upper-middle-class family. My upbringing was cushy and sheltered compared to her own, so she’s not completely wrong, but we only know our own realities.”

The children of immigrants may never pass a physical border, but they still face serious barriers to accessing mental health resources in the United States. There’s the challenge of financing therapy or psychiatry and any associated medications—especially given the number of immigrants who are uninsured, which is roughly 23 percent of lawfully present immigrants and 45 percent of undocumented immigrants (excluding elderly populations), according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation analysis. There are language barriers. And there are race barriers—with fewer people of color using psychological resources and fewer people of color working in psychology.

But the strictly cultural barriers are just as pervasive, though they’re harder to quantify. In reporting this story, second-generation immigrants have shared with me, myself a second-generation immigrant, the sense that “therapy just didn’t exist” to their parents, or was “deeply stigmatized.” (The people interviewed asked to remain anonymous to protect personal details and medical history, and also to protect the identity of their family members.)

The majority of new immigrants to the U.S. are people of color, meaning both parents and children must navigate the realities of racism, but each generation experiences discrimination differently. While U.S.-born children of immigrants don’t have to weather the traumas of migration itself, they may have a harder time enduring discrimination, thanks to having a “singular frame of reference,” said Tomás R. Jiménez, a professor of sociology at Stanford. Parents instead have a “dual frame of reference,” which means “parents are judging life in the United States based on their comparison to the place that they left,” Jiménez added. “Kids only know the kinds of discrimination they face in the United States. And that often leads them to conclude things are a lot worse [than what their parents faced] or that they’re pretty bad.”

Read more on Vice.com.

In this time of the coronavirus pandemic, the NNED wants to ensure that its members are informed about two federal financial support programs for individuals and small businesses that may be economically impacted. The first program is geared to non-profit and for-profit small businesses of less than 500 employees; the second program is for individuals and families.

Assistance for Small Businesses

The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) prioritizes millions of Americans employed by small businesses by authorizing up to $349 billion toward job retention and certain other expenses. Small businesses and eligible nonprofit organizations, Veterans organizations, and Tribal businesses described in the Small Business Act, as well as individuals who are self-employed or are independent contractors, are eligible if they also meet program size standards. PPP provides small businesses with funds to pay up to 8 weeks of payroll costs including benefits. Funds can also be used to pay interest on mortgages, rent, and utilities.  The application period began on April 3.  Apply ASAP as there is a funding cap.

The PPP authorizes forgivable loans to small businesses to pay their employees during the COVID-19 crisis. All loan terms will be the same for everyone.

The loan amounts will be forgiven as long as:

• The loan proceeds are used to cover payroll costs, and most mortgage interest, rent, and utility costs over the 8 week period after the loan is made; and
• Employee and compensation levels are maintained.

View the PPP Information Sheet to learn more about this program.

Download the PPP application form.

Economic Impact Payments: What you need to know

On March 30, 2020, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced that distribution of economic impact payments will begin in the next three weeks and will be distributed automatically, with no action required for most people. However, some taxpayers who typically do not file returns will need to submit a simple tax return to receive the economic impact payment.

Who is eligible for the economic impact payment? Tax filers with adjusted gross income up to $75,000 for individuals and up to $150,000 for married couples filing joint returns will receive the full payment. For filers with income above those amounts, the payment amount is reduced by $5 for each $100 above the $75,000/$150,000 thresholds. Single filers with income exceeding $99,000 and $198,000 for joint filers with no children are not eligible. Social Security recipients and railroad retirees who are otherwise not required to file a tax return are also eligible and will not be required to file a return. Eligible taxpayers who filed tax returns for either 2019 or 2018 will automatically receive an economic impact payment of up to $1,200 for individuals or $2,400 for married couples and up to $500 for each qualifying child.

Read more on the IRS.gov.

Hispanic Americans may experience worsening mental health when immigration arrests spike, a U.S. study suggests.

Researchers examined data on people who identified as Hispanic or Latino in nationally-representative behavioral health surveys administered from 2014 to 2018. Overall, more than one third of these participants reported at least one day of poor mental health in the previous month, and about 11% reported frequent mental distress.

During the study period, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made 440,601 arrests, the study team notes in the American Journal of Public Health. Arrests increased sharply after a series of anti-immigration executive orders in 2017 that authorized a border wall with Mexico, banned U.S. entry for people from several predominantly Muslim countries, and modified ICE policies around arrests and deportation.

“Given that immigration policy continues to be a deeply contested topic, ensuring that the health and social consequences of aggressive enforcement are identified and acknowledged within national debates is a key priority,” study authors Emilie Bruzelius of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York City and Aaron Baum of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City write.

ICE has arrested more than 2 million immigrants living without authorization in the U.S. since 2008, the researchers note. Some previous research suggests that immigration-related anxiety could have a detrimental impact on mental health, particularly among racial/ethnic groups that have been disproportionately targeted for arrest and deportation.

Under current immigration policies, it’s possible that immigration arrests could lead to poor mental health by increasing deportation fears among undocumented individuals and their families and neighbors, the study authors write. People from populations targeted by these immigration policies might also experience more discrimination, which worsens mental health.

Across the entire study period, participants reported an average of 3.62 days of poor mental health during the previous month.

Compared to the period before the immigration policy shifts, a 1-percentage point increase in arrest rates after a policy shift was associated with a 14% higher risk of frequent mental distress and an 11% higher risk of any indications of poor mental health.

The study can’t prove that policy changes or arrest rates might directly impact mental health. Another limitation is that researchers lacked data on whether individual participants had experienced discrimination or were aware of immigration arrests or impacted personally by the policy changes.

The researchers also couldn’t account for any connection between changes in state-level immigration arrests and the proportion of undocumented residents.

“Additional research and, more important, public health action are urgently needed to mitigate the damaging effects of intensified anti-immigration enforcement measures and restrictive immigration policies on health,” the researchers conclude.

Read more on Reuters.com.

One in three black trans youth have tried to take their life in the last year, according to a new report by the Trevor Project. It also finds that black transgender and non-binary youth are twice as likely to attempt suicide in comparison to their cisgender black LGBQ peers.

The Trevor Project is a crisis intervention and suicide charity for LGBTQ young people under 25.Their new report “Black LGBTQ Youth Mental Health” examines the rates of depressed mood, likelihood of being suicidal, and mental health service use among Black LGBTQ youth.

It finds that despite having similar rates of mental health disparities, black LGBTQ youth are less likely to receive professional care. Black transgender and non-binary youth report double the rate of seriously considering (27% vs 59%) and attempting suicide (15% vs 32%) in the past 12 months compared to cisgender Black LGBQ youth. While nearly half (47%) of LGBTQ youth overall report getting professional mental health help in the past year, only 4 in ten (39%) of black LGBTQ youth reported having done so. 

Myeshia Price-Feeney, PhD a Research Scientist for The Trevor Project finds the rates especially troubling:

“Black LGBTQ youth experience heightened rates of suicidality similar to all LGBTQ youth, but they are accessing professional care at lower rates. These troubling findings suggest that existing models of care have failed at providing black LGBTQ youth access to appropriate and acceptable mental health services. They underscore the need for culturally competent, community-derived suicide prevention programs. We must move past a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to better serve black LGBTQ youth.”

The report follows Trevor Project research that revealed three in 10 young trans people in America have tried to take their life in the last year.

Over 34,000 young LGBTQ people were surveyed for the largest survey of LGBTQ youth mental health ever done for the Trevor Project inaugural National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health this year.

Read more on Forbes.com.

Native American communities experience a much higher rate of mental health issues, such as substance abuse and suicide, than any other racial or ethnic group in the country ― and the media tend to fixate on these grim figures.

Data shows that tribal communities experience psychological distress 1.5 times more often than the general population, and Native Americans use and abuse alcohol and drugs at younger ages and at higher rates than any other ethnic group. Plus, suicide is the second-leading cause of death among 10- to 34-year-olds in tribal communities.

But Doreen Bird, Ph.D., an expert on mental health issues in tribal communities, says numbers like these tell only part of the story.

Bird, who hails from the Kewa Pueblo of New Mexico, has devoted her career to researching mental and behavioral health among Native American communities. She notes that suicide rates can vary widely from tribe to tribe, and cautions against treating all Native peoples as a monolith.

“You can get a very different picture among different tribal nations,” Bird told HuffPost.

Because of the stigma surrounding suicide, the reported numbers can also sometimes be off. In tribal communities, there’s a reluctance to speak about those who have died by suicide, as well as mistrust of outside researchers who examine issues related to suicide but aren’t from within the tribal communities, she added. It can also be taboo to talk about those who have died, Bird explained.

Bird, a 48-year-old mom of six and grandmother of three, wants to change the way tribal communities’ stories are told and hopes to change the conversation around some of the toughest challenges facing many Native populations around the country.

She says alcohol abuse in her own family motivated her to explore these issues from a public health perspective, which means balancing her tribal background with her academic training. From 2016 to 2018, Bird served as a Senior Tribal Prevention Specialist at the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, where she worked with 16 tribes across the United States to address suicide prevention. Recently, she obtained her doctorate in justice studies at the Arizona State University School of Social Transformation.

Read more at HuffPost.com

In order to highlight pockets of excellence across the country, the NNED selects a partner organization to highlight once a month. Empowerment Zone Coalition Inc., has been selected as the Partner of the Month for April in recognition of National Minority Health Month.

The mission of the Empowerment Zone Coalition (EZC) is to raise public awareness and to mobilize communities to improve quality of life for Detroit residents through education, health promotion, wellness, and the prevention of substance use and mental health disorders in the city of Detroit with strong emphasis on the Eastside. EZC develops new initiatives based on identified needs of the community.

Since its inception in May 1996, the coalition has been “Rebuilding the Village” through community empowerment. Coalition members and additional volunteers are dedicated to increasing protective factors through faith-based substance abuse prevention and community involvement. The Empowerment Zone Coalition, Inc. is a very unique 501(c)(3) community-based non-profit that focuses on comprehensive substance abuse prevention. EZC is a broad based coalition with agency collaborations that improves collective advocacy and service delivery to the community with strong focus on the youth and families. For the past 14 years, EZC’s goals were to raise the visibility of the coalition, increase public awareness of substance abuse issues, and public policy advocacy.  

Some of the programs and services that are currently offered:

• A Collective Call to Action: Training & Workshop Series – The Collective Call to Action Workshop Series were designed to educate the community on health, substance abuse and drug-related issues in an effort to counteract the misconceptions and work towards changing the negative social norms in the community.
• Partnerships – EZC continues to work diligently with several partners to maximize the resources offered to the community, reduce the duplication of services, and reach a larger portion of the population. Through the partnerships, EZC has successful organized Prescription Take Back Days, Underage Drinking Town Hall Meeting, World AIDS Day, Kick Butts Day, Red Ribbon Week, Alcohol Awareness Month, HIV/AIDS and Substance Abuse Prevention Public Education Campaign, and etc.
• Education and Advocacy – EZC develops innovative initiatives to raise public awareness on health issues affecting the citizens’ quality of life and work with community citizens to take an active role in changing social conditions in the community through public forums, town hall meetings, public education campaigns and other strategies.
• “Come Walk with Us” Project – According to data provided by Gallup report, the adult obesity rate so far in 2013 is 27.2%, while the 2011 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey indicated that among United States high school students are 13% obese. Obesity can lead to depression, suicide and substance use/abuse. “Come Walk with Us” Project is designed to help individuals to live a healthier lifestyle by exercising and learning about additive substances and healthy tips. The project provides education on proper walking techniques and healthy tips. The program is focus on youth and their families in the city of Detroit.

Learn more about Empowerment Zone Coalition Inc. and their vision to build a safe, healthy, and drug free community that values cultural diversity and assures adequate housing and social services for all in Metro Detroit.

View a list of previous NNED Partners of the Month.