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For 24 years, Diana Huerta has been the only member of her family living in the United States. The rest, still in Mexico, are in touch often, but talking to them on the phone doesn’t cure the anxiety and depression she feels from being isolated in a primarily English-speaking area.

Huerta tried to get on the waitlist for the only bilingual therapy clinic in Orange County, El Futuro, but there was always too much demand. Then the Carrboro location shut its doors in 2015 and she lost hope, turning to virtual sessions with a therapist in Colombia just so she could speak with someone who understands her. 

“We realized that there is a lot of need, especially in the Hispanic community, about mental health, in the absence of clinics and therapists,” Huerta says in Spanish. “Especially with the language.”

For people like Huerta, meeting with Spanish-speaking program staff would keep her from having to pay steep private therapy costs or look outside the U.S. for mental health support.

In addition to breaching language divides, one of the program’s biggest successes has been in adapting the curriculum. After months of the CHWs watching videos, reading manuals, doing extra training, and working through roleplays, Castro says she is amazed at how well the curriculum works, even in just a short time.

 Read more at IndyWeek.com.

Supporting Community Connections prioritizes wellness as a means of early suicide prevention, said Lakshmi Malroutu, chief operations officer for Asian Pacific Community Counseling. By providing services and events that clients enjoy, it promotes socialization and reduces feelings of isolation. From weekly ballroom dancing, which is commonly enjoyed by older Vietnamese population, to tai chi, meditation and trips to religious temples and churches, Supporting Community Connections’ services seek to be non-intrusive, Malroutu said. Hmong, Cantonese and Vietnamese are apart of the seven threshold languages in Sacramento, meaning they are popular primary languages spoken in the city besides English. Nationwide, 45% of Vietnamese people in the United States have limited English proficiency, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Asian Pacific Community Counseling opened in 1976, when Asian women came to the United States as war brides and when refugees fled Vietnam, said Malroutu. A year prior to Asian Pacific Community Counseling’s creation, the fall of Saigon resulted in almost 2 million Vietnamese fleeing the country by boat, according to the National Bureau of Asian Research. More than 500,000 people had died or disappeared along the way.

There is a dire need for mental health services and suicide prevention for Asian and Pacific Islander communities. A 2018 report learned nearly 73% of Asian and Pacific Islander with a mental illness have not receive treatment. The United States Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health found suicide was the leading cause of death for Asian and Pacific Islanders ages 15 to 24 in 2019. While Asian communities receive significant support from their families and are resilient, they still need mental health resources. It was this gap in proper mental health care for Asian communities that prompted Asian Pacific Community Counseling’s founders to create the nonprofit.

Read more at SacBee.com.

When addressing mental health amongst AAPI communities, nuanced care goes beyond overcoming linguistic barriers, moving towards understanding cultural norms that can powerfully affect attitudes towards mental health. 

According to The Asian American Federation’s “Seeking Help, Finding Hope: mental health challenges and solutions for Asian Americans in New York City” study, a majority of Asian American New Yorkers struggle with anxiety and feelings of isolation, yet remain reluctant to seek treatment. 

One of the driving forces behind this mental health decline stems from the stress of high living costs, as one third of AAPI New Yorkers are low-income, an often underrepresented figure given widespread assumptions of AAPI New Yorkers as high achievers. Stereotypes such as the model minority myth have added to these pressures, further stressing and isolating struggling individuals. 

Through their ability to nimbly address the nuanced elements of support, community-based organizations are equipped to bridge gaps in AAPI mental healthcare. AAF’s mental health roundtable aims to encourage policymakers to increase support in community-based organizations through robust funding and investments in a linguistically and culturally competent mental healthcare workforce. Additionally, through the organization’s AAF Mental Health Directory, AAPI community members can find clinical and non-clinical mental health providers tailored to their needs. The first database of its kind, the directory aims to bridge gaps in access by connecting patients to a wealth of underutilized resources. 

Read more at NYNMedia.com.

Lesbian and bisexual women die significantly earlier than heterosexual women, according to a new study, and it’s likely due in part to discrimination.

The role sexuality plays in overall health is a subject that’s attracted researchers for decades, resulting in a large body of evidence of how LGBTQ people experience a variety of negative outcomes, from mental health issues to chronic disease, at elevated rates. But what hadn’t been widely studied is how these outcomes actually affect mortality rates.

The paper, published last month in JAMA, reviewed decades’ worth of data from the Nurses’ Health Study II, which began in 1989 as part of a series of investigations into risk factors for major chronic diseases in women. The authors analyzed how sexuality contributed to premature death rates among the study’s cohort of more than 100,000 U.S. nurses. And what they turned up was an alarming disparity in how long lesbian and bisexual women live in comparison to their heterosexual peers. 

Read more at NBCNews.com.

Rosanna Jackson, an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs, counts herself as one of the resilient ones. Her childhood in the 1970s and 80s was tough. Home didn’t always feel like a safe place to be.

There’s a stigma that leads to people “not talking about their feelings and not wanting everyone to know that they’re hurt or in pain,” she said of many in her community who have dealt with similar childhood trauma.

But that silence can be lethal, Jackson said. Now an adult who has dedicated her life to helping her tribal members be more resilient, Jackson is leading the effort to create the nation’s first suicide helpline staffed by and designed for Native youth.

“I’m hoping that my youth will come out of their shell and help each other,” Jackson said. “It’s OK to not be OK. It’s OK to talk about what’s on your mind.”

Native youth have one of the highest rates of suicide of any demographic in the country, according to federal data. While American Indian and Alaskan Native teenagers reported feelings of sadness and hopelessness that tracked with national averages, they were more likely than their peers of other races to seriously consider suicide, to make a plan to die by suicide and to attempt suicide. That’s according to the latest youth risk behavior survey for high schoolers by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Counselors on the Native & Strong line follow the same protocol, but they also list culturally specific practices, like smudging (the burning of sacred herbs), talking to an elder or eating a traditional food.

There was some encouraging news buried in the most recent CDC data on suicide released last year. The rate of suicide for young people fell 8% in 2022 and for Native people it fell 6%. Yet experts say a one-year drop is hardly a trend.

Read more at OPB.org.

For Black communities, and especially Black men, mental health can often be a taboo subject, but actor Courtney Vance is fighting to bring the issue out of the shadows.

A May 8 webinar, hosted by the Give Black Alliance — formerly New England Blacks in Philanthropy — featured the award-winning stage and screen performer along with psychologist Robin L. Smith as they discussed their book “The Invisible Ache,” which was published in November.

The book — part memoir of Vance’s own struggles with his mental health as he coped with the death of both his father and godson by suicide, part psychology guidebook — is a tool that both authors said they hope will guide people to take the first step in addressing mental health challenges.

Making a shift to treat mental health as an everyday consideration is an important step that could help care, said Dr. Christine Crawford, a psychiatrist at Boston Medical Center, during a separate interview.

Often, she said, she sees people come into the hospital seeking help only when they’re facing a moment of crisis, not as a preventive measure. That approach can complicate care for that patient and the system overall.

Crawford, who has a background in child psychiatry, also said she thinks work to address mental health in Black communities needs to start early.

Read more at BayStateBanner.com.