News

The website for the National Network to Eliminate Disparities in Behavioral Health (NNED) has a new look! Designed to promote interaction among NNED members and optimize timely content and resources, the website features new engaging features while also maintaining highly utilized features/sections. 

We ask for your patience and grace as we work out issues that may arise, as well as your feedback on the new site.  Click the button below to give us your input.

For existing members, please reset your password

During our migration to the new site, we moved over NNED member profiles, but to protect your privacy, you will have to reset your password to access secure areas of the NNED (i.e., Partner Central, Discussion Forums). Instructions to do so are below:

• Go to the Member Password Reset page: nned.net/password-reset/
• Enter in your email address (it should be the same address that you receive NNED emails)
• Click the “Reset Password” button
• Look in your email mailbox for a message from connect@nned.net for further instructions to create a password on the new site

View screenshots walking you through the resetting password process here (pdf)

If you have any issues or questions, please email the NNED National Facilitation Center at connect@nned.net 

Explore new features

Partner Central enables NNED Members to search for community-based organizations in the network to build partnerships to achieve a shared goal. Find your next partner >>

The Professional Development page compiles information on opportunities to increase one’s capacity in the behavioral health field. This includes training, fellowships, internships, scholarships, jobs, professional programs, and more. Continue your journey in behavioral health equity work >>

The new Funding Opportunities page allows members to search and filter by funding source, populations, focus area, and amount of funding.  New regional grants expand opportunities for smaller community-based organizations to competitively seek locally-based funds. Find funding for your next big idea >>

In order to highlight pockets of excellence across the country, the NNED selects an organization to highlight once a month. Special Service for Groups (SSG) has been selected as the Partner of the Month for December in honor of World AIDS Day (December 1).

SSG is a non-profit health and human service organization dedicated to building and sustaining community-based programs that address the needs of vulnerable communities.

SSG’s APAIT program’s mission is to positively impact the quality of life for medically underserved communities living with or at risk for HIV/AIDS and other health disparities through culturally competent and linguistically appropriate programs in Southern California. APAIT’s vision is to advocate, educate and achieve optimal health and well-being for medically underserved communities. Services offered under APAIT include:

• Behavioral Health Services including:
  • Benefits Assistance and Case Management
  • Individual, Family and Group Mental Health Counseling
  • Outpatient Substance Use Treatment
  • Occupational Therapy
• HIV/STD Prevention and Testing Services
• Capacity Building and Technical Assistance
• Community-Based Participatory Research

Additionally, SSG offers many programs for vulnerable communities:

• Health programs are designed to build healthier communities by addressing chronic disease and barriers to care. Health programming offers a continuum of prevention and health services for individuals and families.
• Mental health programs are designed to decrease mental health disparities and improve the quality of life for vulnerable populations. A variety of programs offer innovative, comprehensive and culturally appropriate services to advance the wellness of diverse communities.
• Substance abuse programs are designed to meet the diverse needs of the community through high quality and innovative services. Programs provide an array of services related to prevention, treatment and recovery.

Learn more about SSG’s dedication and action to provide community-based solutions to the social and economic issues facing those in greatest need.

View a list of previous NNED Partners of the Month here.

The following was written by and from the perspective of Tammy R. Beckham, DVM, PhD, Acting Director, Office of HIV/AIDS and Infectious Disease Policy, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

World AIDS Day is a time to reflect on those we’ve lost to HIV/AIDS, as well as on how much progress we’ve made in the national response to HIV. It’s also an important opportunity to assess where we need to improve and what our next steps should be.

Successes

We continue to make progress toward achieving our goals of reducing new HIV infections, improving health outcomes among people living with HIV, and reducing some HIV-related disparities. Reaching these goals will require that we sustain the progress we have already made and accelerate efforts, efficiently and effectively, across HIV prevention, treatment, and care services and programs. Today, we have highly effective tools to help us continue and accelerate that trend. For example:

• Treatment as prevention (TasP): We have known for some time that those who know their status, take HIV medication daily as prescribed, and get and keep an undetectable viral load can live long and healthy lives. Now we also know that they have effectively no risk of sexually transmitting HIV to their HIV-negative partners.
• Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a once-daily pill that, when taken as prescribed, can protect HIV-negative people at high risk for infection. PrEP lowers the risk of sexual transmission of HIV by up to 90 percent and the risk of transmission via injection drug use by up to 70 percent.

Challenges

Despite the progress we’ve achieved, some populations and regions continue to fall behind. HIV stigma continues to be a major barrier to prevention, testing, and treatment, and HIV continues to affect certain groups of people more than others. They include men who have sex with men (especially young, black and Latino/Hispanic men), people who inject drugs, and transgender women. We must continue to focus our efforts on these key populations to ensure that they reap the benefits of our new HIV prevention and treatment tools.

We also need to ensure that people know about the benefits of getting and keeping an undetectable viral load and how PrEP can protect them from getting HIV. Right now, too many people—including healthcare providers—don’t know about TasP and PrEP, or they don’t realize how lack of access to these interventions is contributing to the ongoing epidemic.

Opportunities

This World AIDS Day, please help us sustain the forward momentum of our response to HIV in the U.S. by:

• Getting tested and getting into care. Take control of your health by knowing your status. Visit the HIV.gov Testing Sites & Care Services Locator to find a convenient testing place and other services near you.
• Talking about HIV, TasP, and PrEP with those in your circle of influence. Tackle stigma and help us spread the word—and potentially save the life/health of people you care about.
• Providing your feedback and comments for updating the NHAS and NVHAP at our upcoming listening sessions. Stay tuned to HIV.gov for details!

Read more on HIV.gov.

Globally, more than 300 million people suffer from depression, according to the World Health Organization. Depression is the world’s leading cause of disability and it contributes to 800,000 suicides per year, the majority of which occur in developing countries.

No one knows how many Zimbabweans suffer from kufungisisa, the local word for depression (literally, “thinking too much” in Shona). But Chibanda is certain the number is high. “In Zimbabwe, we like to say that we have four generations of psychological trauma,” he says, citing the Rhodesian Bush War, the Matabeleland massacre and other atrocities.

Yet those suffering from depression have few options due to a dearth of mental health professionals. Chibanda, who is director of the African Mental Health Research Initiative and an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Zimbabwe and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is one of just 12 psychiatrists practising in Zimbabwe – a country of over 16 million. Such grim statistics are typical in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the ratio of psychiatrists and psychologists to citizens is one for every 1.5 million. “Some countries don’t even have a single psychiatrist,” Chibanda says.

In brainstorming how to tackle this problem, he arrived at an unlikely solution: grandmothers. Since 2006, Chibanda and his team have trained over 400 of the grandmothers in evidence-based talk therapy, which they deliver for free in more than 70 communities in Zimbabwe. In 2017 alone, the Friendship Bench, as the programme is called, helped over 30,000 people there. The method has been empirically vetted and have been expanded to countries beyond, including the US.

The programme, Chibanda believes, can serve as a blueprint for any community, city or country interested in bringing affordable, accessible and highly effective mental health services to its residents. As Chibanda puts it: “Imagine if we could create a global network of grandmothers in every major city in the world.”

Read more on BBC.com

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are an increasing area of interest among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. As this field of study grows, an equity lens can facilitate a greater understanding of the structural, historic, and systemic contexts that relate to limited ACEs data for American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/ANs), as well as disparate exposures to ACEs among this population. Three factors are important to consider in support of more equitable outcomes: AI/AN population characteristics, historical trauma and resilience, and tribal sovereignty.

First, characteristics of the AI/AN population require concerted efforts by researchers to include this population in the rapidly developing ACEs field. The population’s size and diversity, age distribution, and percentage of children living in poverty underscore this consideration. In the United States, an estimated 5.6 million people (1.7 percent of the total population) self-identify as AI/AN alone or in combination with one or more other races, and there are currently 573 federally recognized tribes.

Because the AI/AN population represents one of the smaller racial/ethnic groups in the United States, studies often do not include samples adequate for disaggregated AI/AN findings. Consequently, AI/AN data are typically grouped in an “Other” category, or not analyzed at all. Additionally, when AI/AN statistics are reported, they are often thought to represent a monolithic group, an assumption that overlooks the unique cultures, histories, and contexts of the many tribes in the United States. Meaningful inclusion of AI/ANs in future ACEs work will require oversampling, research and analyses focused on states or regions with large AI/AN populations, and direct partnership with tribes. Prior ACEs work in states like South Dakota and Minnesota and with multiple tribes can serve as examples.

The AI/AN population is also relatively young. In fact, in eight states children under age 18 are estimated to make up one-third or more of the AI/AN population. From a public health perspective, this means that a focus on ACEs among AI/ANs could deliver important long-term benefits—especially given that ACEs increase the level of risk for many of the same negative outcomes (e.g., alcohol and substance use, mental health disorders) that Indian Health Service (IHS) data indicate are concerns for AI/ANs nationally and in specific IHS regions.

AI/AN children are more likely to have experienced certain adverse childhood experiences, which can have negative effects throughout their lives.

ACEs have been linked with numerous negative outcomes, including alcoholism, drug abuse, depression, suicide, and poor physical health.

Second, researchers should consider concepts of historical trauma and resilience in their efforts to understand ACEs among AI/AN populations. Child Trends’ brief notes that there is “no single agreed-upon list of experiences that encompass what we refer to as adverse childhood experiences.” To address links between ACEs and AI/AN well-being, it is essential that we understand whether some adversities are uniquely important to AI/AN contexts. For instance, AI/AN scholars have written for decades about the concept of multi-level, intergenerational impacts of historical trauma. Some have even begun to incorporate measures that capture symptoms of historical trauma alongside standard ACEs measures to better understand health outcomes for AI/AN youth.

Read more on ChildTrends.org.

Since 1999, more than 20 countries began observing Transgender Day of Remembrance. Gwendolyn Ann Smith founded the day to remember Rita Hester, a transgender woman murdered in Allston, Mass. in 1998. It began as an internet-based project and evolved into a day for memorializing the lives lost the previous year. Communities may host candlelight services, join activism marches, hold food drives and have roundtable discussions to observe the day. This year, Mental Health Center of Denver’s PRIDE in Diversity Employee Resource Group and Diversity & Inclusiveness team are hosting an event for staff to talk about their experiences and honor the lives lost this year.

Why Observe Transgender Day of Remembrance?

“We realize that in order to fully promote recovery and resilience, we must understand and appreciate how cultural experiences shape our interactions.” 

-Excerpt from Mental Health Center of Denver Commitment to Diversity

On November 20, people remember the transgender individuals who lost their lives and stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community. Mental Health Center of Denver offers a safe space for people to memorialize those lost, and time to talk about how to create a safer world for transgender people.

Mental Health Center of Denver proudly provides safe spaces where folks in the LGBTQ+ community can seek services. Service providers work with with the LBGTQ+ community throughout their programs. Steven Haden, CPRP, and Darcey Cunningham, MA, LPC, offer their thoughts on observing Transgender Day of Remembrance:

Haden explains, “As the leader in behavioral health, [we] have to make sure our doors are open to everyone regardless of gender identity, gender expression or for those that identify as transgender. We must embrace and celebrate differences, and provide a place where the people we serve feel safe.”

Cunningham adds, “The overwhelming majority of people we serve experienced some sort of trauma in their lives. We have to acknowledge a population often targeted with violence or dismissed entirely, and we must create a safe space for people to heal. The victims of violence deserve acknowledgement and grieving. We must say their names. We hold this day of remembrance to honor their lives and bring awareness to ignorance, bigotry and unnecessary violence in hopes that we can contribute to their end.”

What Can Service Providers Do to Help?

Transgender people may deal with unique mental and emotional issues during their lives.  According to the National Center for Transgender Equality’s U.S. Transgender Survey, 40% of transgender adults reported serious psychological distress in the month before they took the survey. That is eight times more than the rest of the U.S. population and recognizing this divide is important. Mental health professionals can begin understanding why transgender folks are underserved when they understand issues, like gender dysphoria.

One way care providers can help transgender people with their well-being is to treat them as a whole person first. They should also be aware that people identifying as LGBTQ+ may have experienced unique trauma and discrimination in their lives.

“Regardless of staff’s background, training or position, we must provide a non-judgmental, safe space for the people we serve,” says Cunningham. “We don’t have to know everything — we can’t. We must carry the knowledge that whomever walks in our door, for whatever they need, they are a person first.”

Haden adds, “It is critical we understand that barriers to equitable care for LGBTQ+ populations include discrimination, transphobia, and homophobia in healthcare settings. There is an ongoing need for cultural competency when working with LGBTQ+ communities.”

Understanding what constitutes intrusive and inappropriate language and questions, hostility, and verbal abuse towards the LGBTQ+ community is a big part of making sure those behaviors end. By attending trainings and putting in consistent work towards providing safe and inclusive spaces, care providers can continue improving the experience of people in the LGBTQ+ community and work on eradicating the barriers to equitable care.

Read more on MHCD.org.