News

In order to highlight pockets of excellence across the country, the NNED selects a partner organization to highlight once a month. Partnership for Child Health has been selected as the Partner of the Month for August.

Over the past two decades, Partnership for Child Health (the Partnership), has evolved as a uniquely successful trans-disciplinary Center of Excellence to advocate for and develop and implement services, programs, and systems of care to advance the child health priorities of local communities.

The Partnership’s programs, services, and systems of care have served the widest possible spectrum of children and families struggling with complex medical conditions, mental, behavioral and addiction health disorders, developmental disabilities, access to dental care, family violence and dysfunction, poverty, child trafficking, etc.

Their current work, Family Engagement for Mental Health, offers specialty training classes to community members that address various behavioral health topics.

Learn more about Partnership for Child Health and its mission to become a catalyst in lifting the health and well-being of all children in Florida.

View a list of previous NNED Partners of the Month.

After being largely under the radar for three years, Hollywood actor Constance Wu broke her silence last week, opening up about her mental health, and in doing so, admitting there’s still a lot of work left to do for and within the Asian American community. 2019 social media backlash led her to a mental health crisis and a suicide attempt, Wu revealed on Twitter last week.

“I was afraid of coming back on social media because I almost lost my life from it,” Wu wrote. “[Asian Americans] don’t talk about mental health enough. While we’re quick to celebrate representation wins, there’s a lot of avoidance around the more uncomfortable issues within our community.”

“Asian American women want to be their authentic selves but their image and behavior are prescribed by society and family expectations,” says Hyeouk Chris Hahm, an associate dean of research at Boston University’s School of Social Work, who has extensively studied mental health disparities in the Asian American community.

While no two experiences are alike, Hahm points out that in spaces like the workplace, many Asian American women are stereotyped to be soft-spoken, respectful, and followers rather than leaders. When they try to break out of that mold by speaking up for themselves, they can be met with pushback, Hahm added.

Read more at NPR.org.

You’re invited to attend a community needs assessment data workshop. While this virtual workshop is open to the public, this opportunity intends to provide technical assistance to National Network to Eliminate Disparities in Behavioral Health (NNED) members (free to join) and minority-serving and under-resourced community-based organizations (CBOs).

After attending this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Understand the purpose of a community needs assessment
• Identify who should be involved in a community needs assessment
• Plan and conduct a community needs assessment
• Learn about the impact made by community needs assessment reports

Speaker:

Allison Houston, PhD, MSc, CPH
Epidemiology/Research Scientist
Proscenium Data Solutions

Dr. Allison Houston is a public health epidemiologist and research scientist. She works across academia, government, non-profit, and private sectors, bridging people and technology and advancing health equity using data and evidence-based research.

The event was also shared on Facebook Live at fb.com/nned.net and closed captioning was be available through Zoom.

“Elevate CBOs” is an overarching policy-driven initiative at SAMHSA’s Office of Behavioral Health Equity (OBHE) to build capacity, increase the visibility, and highlight the unique role of CBOs serving under-resourced communities in behavioral health.

“The assault on the mental well-being of our communities reflect the disproportionate physical, emotional, and financial impacts the COVID-19 pandemic has had on Hispanic communities,” said Jane L. Delgado, PhD, MS, President and CEO of the National Alliance for Hispanic Health, the Nation’s leading Hispanic health advocacy group. To underscore the needs and to mark the start of National Minority Mental Health Month (July 2022), the National Alliance for Hispanic Health released a series of infographics to highlight the crisis that exists among Hispanic high school students as well as for Hispanic adults.

According to findings released in the infographics, nearly 1 in 5 Hispanic high school students (19.7%) seriously considered suicide, and nearly half (46.6%) reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed a decade-long trend of students’ declining mental health into a national emergency.

The data for adults is also concerning. The data from June 2020 revealed that Hispanic adults were the community most likely to report at least one adverse mental health condition, including anxiety disorder or depressive disorder. Moreover, Hispanics were the group most likely to have considered suicide. Furthermore, treatment rates for Hispanic individuals living with a mental illness are alarmingly low. In 2020, only about a third of Hispanic adults with a mental illness received treatment, compared to nearly half of all non-Hispanic individuals.

Read more at PRNewsWire.com.

Bible Based Fellowship, a predominantly-Black, non-denominational church in the Carrollwood neighborhood, is one of many churches addressing the mental health of their members.

Though Black churches have long been trusted resources in their communities, some haven’t been as supportive about mental health in the past.

Fear and misconceptions about mental health have affected how some church leaders respond to members in need, according to Dr. Katurah Jenkins-Hall, a licensed clinical psychologist and founder of Greater Reach Alliance of Counselors and Educators, or G.R.A.C.E.

“They would say it was that person’s fault. They would blame it on lack of faith, even on sin,” said Jenkins-Hall, who is a pastor herself. “And so if you identify those kinds of underlying issues as being causative, then your treatment is going to be you need more faith, you need to come to church more, you need to pray more and we know that’s not the entire story.”

Through G.R.A.C.E., Jenkins-Hall trains pastors to promote mental wellness among all their church members and how to recognize when someone is experiencing a crisis. The group also provides professional counseling to people who can’t afford to get care on their own.

Read more at WUSFnews.edu.

Despite happening nearly a hundred years ago, the nation is still seeing the impacts of redlining and other forms of systemic racism, with recent data showing that redlining has resulted in present-day limits on patient access to mental healthcare.

“While it may seem hard to understand how structurally racist redlining policies that were implemented nearly 100 years ago would impact access to care today, this initial analysis suggests that could be the case,” Clese Erikson, Principal Investigator at the Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity at The George Washington University, stated publicly.

These findings come as the healthcare industry continues to focus on health equity and acknowledge the role that historical systemic racism, like redlining, has played in current disparities.

This could impact patient access to mental healthcare for individuals living in previously redlined districts, who to this day tend to be Black or people of color.

The researchers acknowledged that simply working off the listed mailing address is not always reflective of a mental healthcare provider’s practice area. However, the findings warrant further investigation into access to mental healthcare providers and how other social determinants of health, like transportation, compound to limit access.

Read more at PatientEngagementHit.com.