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When Melanie James, Diné, a tribal crisis counselor at the Native and Strong Lifeline, answered her first phone call for the line back in November, it was from a mother struggling to get help for her child who was dealing with suicidal ideation. In the past, the mother had reached out to the 988 lifeline, but had been disappointed with the lack of knowledge about tribal and culturally specific resources.

Native and Strong Lifeline exists to provide those resources.

“She was so grateful that I was Native American because she said in a way, there is still stigma about mental health and the struggles about mental health amongst Native American communities,” Melanie James said. “I feel that Native and Strong Lifeline is one of the stepping stones that will help break that barrier.”

In response to the growing mental health crisis, Volunteers of America Western Washington, one of three of the state’s 988 crisis centers, launched the Native and Strong Lifeline in November 2022. The program is dedicated to serving Native communities across the state.

“There is a taboo of discussing suicide within Indigenous communities,” said Crystal James, Diné, a tribal crisis counselor shift lead at the lifeline. “It’s been great to be a catalyst to go from an area of taboo to getting to a journey of self-healing.”

Since launching, the Native and Strong Lifeline has received over 1,200 calls from across the state, according to Mia Klick, Tulalip and Nuu-Chah-Nulth descendant, the Native and Strong Lifeline coordinator. The lifeline has 14 tribal crisis counselors, but is in the process of expanding up to 18.

Working to support Native communities across Washington, the lifeline is run by Native crisis counselors, most of whom have their own lived experiences dealing with mental health struggles.

Read more at ICTNews.org.

While the Juneteenth holiday comes just once a year, mental health equity is a year-round cause. Learn more about this foundational holiday and how this historical day illuminates the importance of racial equity in mental health care.

Juneteenth is a holiday celebrated on June 19th to honor the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States. The holiday can be traced to Galveston, Texas, where approximately 2,000 troops arrived on June 19, 1865, and announced the freedom of more than 250,000 enslaved Black people in Texas. Before this day, some people remained enslaved despite the Emancipation Proclamation, which was passed in 1863 to free slaves in the U.S. In places still under Confederate control – which included Galveston, Texas – many people remained enslaved until the end of the Civil War in 1865.

In 1980, Texas officially recognized Juneteenth as “Emancipation Day,” a statewide holiday. Though many people have celebrated Juneteenth since 1866, many states did not recognize the holiday until President Joe Biden officially declared Juneteenth as a national holiday on June 17th, 2021.

The national recognition of Juneteenth follows an emotional and lengthy journey, heightened by the killing of George Floyd in 2020. Celebrators and supporters of the holiday have worked hard to raise awareness of this seminal summer day, and to remind U.S. citizens – as well as people outside the U.S. – why we honor this moment in history. Juneteenth also relates to another event which is Black History Month, which strives to celebrate the contributions and acknowledge the sacrifices made by African Americans.

With this history in mind, Juneteenth is also an opportunity to point out and condemn modern examples of racial inequity in all areas of life – including mental health care. These injustices persist in the U.S. and elsewhere, and as advocates for equity, we must remember that the end of slavery did not mark the end of all racial injustice.

In the context of mental health, the difference between equity and equality influences our ability to support people of all backgrounds, especially those who belong to racial and ethnic minority groups. For some of us, Juneteenth may be one of the few days of the year when we openly discuss this distinction – but for lasting change, these discussions must continue past June.

Read more at BetterHelp.com.

A new option for people with treatment-resistant depression and anxiety will be available on the Big Island starting Monday. It’s called transcranial magnetic stimulation, a noninvasive method developed in the 1980s and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2008.

Kipuka O Ke Ola, the Native Hawaiian rural health clinic in Waimea, recently acquired a TMS machine, making it the first and only one on the island to date.

Dr. Michael Farnsworth, a psychiatrist who works at the clinic three days a week, said he’ll start offering TMS therapy to certain patients this week.

“The magnetic field stimulates the neurons in the prefrontal cortex which are connected to the limbic system in the interior of your brain. That is the mood center,” he said.

Patients typically receive 18-minute sessions of TMS five days a week for six weeks. They stay awake the entire time and do not require any sedation. They can typically return to work or school or go about their daily activities with no down time.

The treatment will help an entirely new class of patients with depression who don’t respond to medications or talk therapy, Farnsworth said.

“It’s a fantastic treatment and I wish it was more readily accessible to people,” said Dr. Doreen Fukushima, a Honolulu-based psychiatrist who offers TMS at her clinic, Hoola Pono.

Read more at CivilBeat.org.

Access to mental health care in Latino and Hispanic communities is limited. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, only 35.1 percent of Hispanic and Latinx adults with a mental illness receive treatment. Language barriers and lack of insurance are some of the main factors that steer Spanish-speaking individuals away from receiving care, but Sanarai, a local healthtech platform, is addressing these issues.

Sanarai is a nonclinical mental health platform that partners with psychologists in Latin America to provide mental health services to Spanish-speaking adults. The platform allows users to receive care in their native language and patients aren’t required to have health insurance to participate.

Sanarai founder Luis Suarez grew up in Mexico City and moved to the U.S. to complete his MBA at Duke University. After graduating and working in consulting for a few years, the pandemic hit, and he began looking for mental health services in Spanish but struggled to find any.

“I was struggling to find someone that I could speak Spanish with and could fit [in] my schedule,” Suarez told Built In. “So that’s when I realized that there’s a big gap to cover the Latino community’s needs in terms of mental health.”

The U.S. has a shortage of mental health care providers that can provide culturally relevant care to Latinx patients. Only 5.5 percent of U.S. psychologists in 2016, the most recent data available, said they could provide care in Spanish. According to a 2021 report from the American Psychological Association, less than 8 percent of the U.S. psychology workforce identifies as Hispanic. Access to care has slightly increased over the years, but not enough to meet demand, according to Suarez.

Read more at BuiltinChicago.org.

Even in discussions about the effects of healthcare inequity and inequality on Black communities, the topic of Black mental health is often overlooked. Not only is it overlooked, but when Black folks do speak up and seek help, there are significant barriers that prevent them from accessing the mental health care they need.

So, how can we bring more awareness to something so vital to the health and happiness of Black communities in this country and around the world? And what can we do to change the narrative around Black mental health — to identify those barriers and promote equity in mental health care for people everywhere?

Our “health” encompasses everything about us — from the well-being of our bodies to our emotional state and so much more. But even though we often view health through a primarily physical lens, the reality is that our mental health is just as integral to our overall sense of wellness.

“Mental health is an incredibly important factor for a fulfilling life. And having good mental health means having a better quality of life and satisfaction with your overall being,” Dr. Francesca K. Owoo, LCPC, LMHC, a licensed therapist who specializes in helping BIPOC couples and families navigate chronic illness, tells Healthline.

“Mental well-being should always be prioritized to ensure that everyone can experience stability and wellness in their lives,” Owoo says.

But in BIPOC communities in the United States, especially in Black communities, factors like racism, oppression, and trauma can severely affect a person’s mental well-being and contribute to huge disparities in mental illness rates.

Read more at Healthline.com.

Gilbert R. Cisneros Jr., undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, signed a policy today to initiate implementation of the Brandon Act and improve the process for service members seeking mental health support. The Brandon Act aims at improving the referral process for service members seeking a mental health evaluation and allowing them to seek help confidentially, Cisneros said.

The Brandon Act is named after Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Brandon Caserta who died by suicide in 2018. The legislation was signed into law by President Joe Biden on Dec. 27, 2021, as part of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act.

“Our greatest strength is our people, and we are committed to their well-being,” Cisneros said. “Therefore, I firmly believe that seeking mental health treatment is a sign of strength and resilience. This policy, spurred by the passage of the Brandon Act, is an important step in ensuring that our service members are able to seek mental health treatment when and how they need it. We honor Petty Officer Brandon Caserta’s memory by ensuring that our military services have procedures and processes in place that allow service members to seek help confidentially, for any reason, at any time and in any environment, and aim to reduce the stigma associated with seeking mental health care.”

Implementation of the policy will occur in two phases. In phase one, which should be implemented within 45 days, the services will establish procedures to implement the policy for service members on active duty. In phase two, the services will establish procedures to implement the policy for service members not serving on active duty, he said.

For the Brandon Act to have its intended impact, it’s important that commanding officers and supervisors are trained on the process to expedite mental health referrals so that help is provided when it’s most needed, Lester Martinez-Lopez, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said. Recognizing the signs of mental health issues and knowing the available resources to offer is also key, he said.

Read more at Defense.gov.