News

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.

Exploring Innovative Strategies for Sustainability and Retention in the Behavioral Health Field

Community-based organizations (CBOs) across the nation are experiencing challenges in sustaining programs and services, staff retention and training, and organizational capacity. With the COVID-19 emergency relief funding coming to an end this summer, many organizations are left wondering how to access long-term funding to continue to serve their communities’ increasing behavioral health needs. The pandemic prompted many CBOs to expand their services to address social determinants of health (SDOH) interrelated with behavioral health — including housing, food insecurity, and employment training — making them “one-stop shops” seeking new ways to tap into funding sources. Compounding these issues is the limited organizational capacity to continue to seek, apply for, and meet the deliverables of grants. As the nation witnesses the “great resignation” with a current quit rate of 3% (~4.6 million — nearly doubled since April 2020), organizations of all sizes are enduring the effects (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2022). CBO staff are experiencing high rates of burnout and limited support trying to keep up with the rise of behavioral health needs and filling in workforce gaps.

Join this NNED Virtual Roundtable to gain insight from federal agencies, CBOs, and behavioral health leaders around creative methods to sustain the work being done at the community level. Panelists will provide examples of success stories and discuss strategies for organizations to be able to continue their efforts long into the future.

During this NNED Virtual Roundtable, participants will learn:

• Innovative ways to secure funding and address reporting and compliance needs
• How to seek and/or create collaborative opportunities to increase organizational capacity
• Approaches to growing and diversifying the behavioral health workforce
• How to provide professional development and prevent overextending existing staff

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

This NNED Virtual Roundtable is hosted by the NNED National Facilitation Center and SAMHSA’s Office of Behavioral Health Equity.

Opening Remarks

Panelists

Native Americans have the highest rates of suicide of any racial or ethnic group in the United States. During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, a National Council for Mental Wellbeing survey found that 45% of Native American adults said they’d had more stress and mental health challenges, while only 24% had received treatment for mental health.

While Native Americans have high suicide rates and unique cultural challenges, programs aimed at prevention have seldom been designed for their specific needs.

Zero Suicide is a generalized suicide program that first launched in 2012, promoting the adoption of “zero suicide” as a goal across U.S. health care systems. It has since mobilized the field of suicide care worldwide.

The program uses seven elements, including assessment of suicide risk, collaboration with patients on safety plans, suicide-specific treatment, and follow-up care. It also expands suicide prevention training for health care workers and engages the broader community, including family members of those receiving care.

This model has been shown to work in the general population but has not been validated for Native communities. Research about effective suicide prevention in Native communities is sparse, says Sadé Heart of the Hawk Ali, tribal lead and senior project associate for the Zero Suicide Institute in Waltham, MA.

Read more at WebMD.com.

Across the U.S., there is a mental health crisis — according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) one in five Americans have a mental health condition. While issues such as depression and anxiety affect all populations, Latinos’ mental health issues are often related to certain lived experiences, including discrimination, cultural identity, immigration, and unique family and community stressors.

While mental illness vulnerability rates among Hispanics are similar to those of the U.S. population as a whole, Latinos and other minorities have higher rates of untreated mental health concerns. Only 34% of Hispanic adults with mental illnesses receive treatment annually according to NAMI. There are a host of reasons for this, including barriers to care such as cultural stigma and distrust in the healthcare system.

Why are Latinos suffering in silence and what can we do to ensure the health and wellbeing of our Latino community members?

According to the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), “among U.S. adults with mental health disorders, racial/ethnic minorities are only half as likely as Whites to get treatment; they are also more likely to drop out before completing their treatment.” Often, this can be attributed to some Latinos claiming that they don’t want treatment. But it’s not that they don’t want to feel better—let’s explore the underlying causes of this desire to avoid mental health treatment.

While there is certainly a stigma attached to mental health treatment throughout the general population in the U.S. (although this has begun to ease in recent years), the stigmatization of seeking mental health services is exacerbated in Hispanic communities, partially due to a culture of privacy and secrecy. Among Latinos, it is a common belief that these types of challenges are shameful and should be dealt with within the home to avoid unwanted attention on their family that may result from accessing therapy or other services.

Read more at CoolAssociatesLLC.com.

Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial or ethnic group in the United States but remain severely underrepresented in the area of maternal mental health (MMH). Until recently, there had been no Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI)-specific MMH resources and very limited research on MMH and the AAPI population. That’s why the mental health app Expectful has created a new set of resources specifically for Asian-American moms dealing with maternal mental health disorders with Cindy Herrick, Strategic Partnerships & National Campaigns Lead for 2020 Mom, MMH patient expert and advocate, and Certified Peer Support Specialist in Maternal Mental Health.

Along with Dr. Deepika Goyal, PhD, FNP, professor at The Valley Foundation School of Nursing, nurse practitioner at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, and a leading researcher on MMH, Cindy has joined Expectful in working to raise awareness about the AAPI community and MMH disorders. Together, Cindy and Deepika share their maternal mental health experiences and how they became advocates: Cindy in the area of policy and awareness building and Deepika with her research efforts.

Years ago, maternal mental health was often a siloed and taboo topic. Advocates were simply fighting to have MMH mainstreamed and to be heard as a collective. However, as the topic of MMH has been normalized and thankfully made its way into mainstream discussions, the time has come to talk about Asian moms and MMH. The growing AAPI population and the recent influx of stressors for the AAPI population create an urgent need for a call to action to fund more resources, research, and the development of culturally-sensitive interventions. With adequate resources, support and funding, we can all work to promote the health and welfare of Asian mothers and help them and their families thrive.

Read more at Mother.ly.