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Mental health resources for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) are essential today with the rise of hate and discrimination directed toward these communities. According to a report issued by Stop AAPI Hate, a group that works to track incidents of racially motivated harassment and violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, anti-Asian hate crimes are on the rise.

Between March 19, 2020, and February 28, 2021, almost 3,800 anti-Asian hate incidents were reported. These incidents included slurs, shunning, and physical assaults. More than twice as many attacks were directed toward Asian American women than toward Asian American men.

Such numbers represent acts of discrimination that have been reported—the actual numbers are likely much higher. This uptick in harassment and violence is largely attributed to the coronavirus pandemic and racist political rhetoric directed toward Asian people.

This discrimination, harassment, and violence have a serious impact on the mental health and well-being of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. For example, one study found that 42% of those who had experienced discrimination had anxiety symptoms, 30% had depression symptoms, and 39% had symptoms of traumatic stress. Therefore, it is critical that these communities have access to appropriate mental health resources.

Read more at VeryWellMind.com.

During the 2021-2022 school year, the average student-to-counselor ratio was 408-to-1. The American School Counselor Association has recommended a ratio of 250-to-1 since 1965.

The added layers of stress, social isolation, and life disruption during the pandemic has led to dire mental health outcomes, with adolescents even showing accelerated brain aging. The “soaring rates of mental health challenges” among youth prompted a group of national health organizations to declare a national state of emergency in children’s mental health in October 2021, saying that the crisis was “inextricably tied to the stress brought on by COVID-19.”

The limited supply of mental health professionals has created significantly longer wait times for students — more than a year, in some cases, said Dr. Christine Crawford, associate medical director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

“My overall concern is not about what’s happening, present day,” Crawford said. “I’m worried about the impact of the cumulative effects of all these delays in entering mental health care and how that’s going to alter the trajectory for a lot of these kids.”

The hurdles to providing adequate mental health services in schools are multifaceted, including insufficient staff to manage caseloads, lack of licensed professionals, and limited funding.

Read more at CapitalBNews.org.

Autistic women and girls face barriers to early diagnosis, an oversight that leaves them without vital early support and reduced support options as adults. It’s estimated that 80% of autistic women remain undiagnosed at 18, having learnt to conceal, or ‘mask,’ more commonly acknowledged symptoms as children.

This results in many women receiving a diagnosis only after presenting with co-occurring mental health conditions like anxiety or depression, due to intense feelings of difference or stress when navigating a neurotypical world.

Cathy Wassell, CEO of Autistic Girls Network, said: “We are diagnosing people in crisis because we haven’t recognised them as autistic before that.

Lee Gibbons’ work, as operating manager of charity ASD Helping Hands, reflects the important part charities play in plugging this gap.

The charity offers a combination of social groups, training and workshops for parents and employers and well as support navigating diagnostic processes.

When Gibbons began working at the charity in 2010, he exclusively saw children but adult referrals have spiked over the past four years, making up 40% of the charity’s cases.

He emphasised that a lack of support means that diagnosis is never the finishing line.

Gibbons said: “After an initial wave of relief, many people experience self-doubt and questioning. You get offered three to four sessions of therapy, which often raises more unanswered questions… It can be an isolating and lonely experience.”

Read more at SWLondoner.co.uk.

A dual diagnosis involves a mental health disorder and substance abuse problem that occurs simultaneously. For example, an individual with depression is more likely to drink alcohol to self-medicate symptoms of irritability, insomnia and feelings of helplessness. Research also shows that while excessive alcohol consumption does not produce behavioral conditions, drinking can exacerbate the symptoms of a mental illness.

Having a drinking problem or mental illness does not guarantee a person will develop a co-occurring disorder. However, it can significantly increase the likelihood of a dual diagnosis later down the road.

With dual diagnosis, the symptoms of alcoholism and a mental illness often feed off of each other. Because of this, any amount of alcohol will affect a person’s emotional well-being and vice versa. If left untreated, a co-occurring mental illness and alcohol dependency can spiral out of control, taking a toll on both the individual suffering and their loved ones.

There are many mental health conditions that can co-occur with alcohol abuse. Some of the most common conditions include depression, bipolar disorder, and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Each mental illness affects alcoholism in a different way, depending on the longevity and severity of the disorder.

Read more at AlcoholRehabGuide.org.

The struggle to find a therapist can be a daunting task, and connecting with someone you feel you can identify with can make it more difficult. Dr. Khadijah Booth Watkins, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Associate Director of the Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds, said, “More and more people are looking for therapy and we just don’t have the supply to meet the demand.”

She knows it’s not easy for people struggling with their mental health to find help.

“People have waited for years to try to get a therapist that they can find is a match or that takes their insurance. Even here in the city, though, it can be really difficult to find someone who’s specially trained, especially if we think about child and adolescent psychiatry as child and adolescent therapists, they’re very few,” Watkins said.

When talking about therapists of color, especially Black therapists, the search gets even more challenging.

“The numbers are quite disappointing. It’s about 85-90% are not of color therapists, so around 5-6% of therapists are people of color, whether they’re Black or brown. And so that’s pretty big. If we think about what the world that we live in looks like, it doesn’t really quite match. And so it’s really hard for some people to find someone that they think can relate to them,” Watkins said.

Gabrielle Palmer, a mentorship and Leadership Program Administrator with the Center for Workforce Development at William James College said, “There’s something about sitting across a room from someone who knows your experience, who’s been in your shoes, that you don’t have to share all of the unspoken.”

“We have so many pipeline programs that are just for this to increase the accessibility and to really widen the pipeline for folks of color who want to work and in underserved communities or marginalized communities who also identify as a racial ethnic minority. And there is a power of really giving service while also being someone who looks like the ones you give service to,” Palmer said.

That’s where the Black Mental Health Graduate Academy comes in.

Read more are WCVB.com.

A new study is shining light on access to behavioral health care in Ohio. Within the study, it’s noted that “barriers to care are negatively impacted by provider bias, racism, and stigma, which lead to poorer quality of care and worse behavioral health outcomes.”

Tracy Maxwell-Heard, the executive director of the Multi-Ethnic Advocates for Cultural Competence, indicated that the findings are not surprising.

“What we found out are those stigmas, those biases, are just as present in the behavioral health community as in any other sector,” she said. “And our endeavor is to try to quantify that so that we can create some balance and some access, increased access for those from those BIPOC communities…Black Indigenous People of Color who are struggling to find service deliverers who look like them, speak their language, understand their cultural norms and can give them the same equitable service as the rest of the Ohioans.”

When looking at those who are incarcerated, the numbers for mental health treatment differ drastically between Black and white Americans, with white Americans receiving more care. When asked about the difficulties Black people face getting treatment, Heard said that when incarcerated “It just exacerbates your ability to reach whatever services you’re in need of.”

Read more at SpectrumNews.com.