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The first time Jacqueline Garcia sought therapy, she was in college. She’d lived in Tijuana until she was 12, and she had struggled with the transition when her family immigrated to the United States.

She signed up for an initial therapy session with a mental health professional but never made a second appointment. She said she didn’t feel like her white therapist understood or validated her experiences.

Five years passed before Garcia was ready to search for a therapist again. She wanted to work with a bilingual mental health professional who could understand her childhood and its effects on her young-adult life.

“Having someone who is not culturally competent and/or informed can lead to experiencing microaggressions, feeling misunderstood, or even perpetuating oppressive behaviors,” said Lydiana Garcia, a Los Angeles-based psychologist.

A culturally competent mental health professional, by contrast, aims to be sensitive to and understand your cultural background. That includes your values, race, and religious or spiritual beliefs.

A therapist with this kind of training allows you to focus on talking about your experiences and how you’re feeling without having to explain the nuances of your family dynamic or upbringing.

Lydiana Garcia; Katheryn Perez, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Burbank; and Angelica Tello, assistant professor of counseling at the University of Houston-Clear Lake share some tips for Latinos looking for a culturally competent therapist.

Read more at LATimes.com.

New York is home to nearly one million Asians and Pacific Islanders (API), who account for 14% of the city’s population. From 2000 to 2017, the Asian population grew by 48% and in that same time period, the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) community grew by 25% nationwide, becoming the fastest-growing racial group in the U.S. between 2000 and 2019.

In an effort to better understand the needs of each API group, the New York City Department of Health released a first-of-its-kind report that broke down the health data in the city by API ethnic groups, rather than lumping all groups together. The report notes that a history of racism and exclusionary immigration policies, such as the establishment of Japanese internment camps in 1942, the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, and more recently, the rise in anti-Asian violence and hate crimes have trickled down into API communities, impacting their overall health and well-being.

Additionally, API groups may not have access to culturally competent mental health services or providers. Other barriers include mental health-related information and questions that may not translate into all dialects, making it harder for mental health providers to interpret mental health needs and make it harder for API to speak about their issues.

Despite years of lumping API groups together, there is a myriad of ethnic groups that make up New York’s population, including but not limited to people of Chinese, Indian, Korean, Filipino, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Thai ancestry.

“Within research communities, there is a just a complete lack of data disaggregation when it comes to looking at Asian American and Pacific Islander populations,” Lee explained. Because each ethnic group has sub-differences, breaking down the data by different groups allows for researchers to explore each group’s needs thoroughly, she said.

Read more at VerywellHealth.com.

More than 18 months into the pandemic, the Navajo Nation, once the area in the United States hit hardest by COVID-19, is now one of the safest. Back in March 2020, clan members congregated for a social gathering and then returned to their homes in different regions throughout the reservation—many of which are multigenerational. It allowed the virus to take advantage of the tight-knit Navajo community, according to its president, Jonathan Nez.

“At that time, we thought we could stop it,” Nez said. “Once we brought that virus back into the home, it just spread and it took a toll on us. We had to mobilize, and a lot of it was getting out there on social media, getting on the radio and letting people know that the safest place to be was at home.”

The solution, Nez said, has been the community’s prioritization of collective responsibility in its ongoing vaccination efforts.

The Navajo Nation boasts a 72 percent vaccination rate among eligible residents—a benchmark higher than the nationwide rate of nearly 62 percent. Mary Owen, president of the Association of American Indian Physicians and director of the Center of American Indian and Minority Health is also worried about the prevailing mental health crisis on the Navajo Nation. Experts say that Indigenous people are at higher risk for mental health problems and financial difficulties due to COVID, which have been exacerbated by social isolation and the nation’s high death rate.

The nation’s leaders, however, are optimistic that the tenacity of their community, passed down over scores of generations of Navajos, will help them overcome the disproportionate effects of the global pandemic.

Read more at TheNation.com.

Trim day at the barbershop can bring a sharp line or fade, but now that time in a chair comes with much more than a dope cut.

Through a program called The Confess Project, licensed barbers are trained to be mental health champions for Black men who are less likely to see a therapist. Many clients say barbershops are a safe place for African American men, and it’s in the barber’s chair that clients get a fresh look designed with mental healing.

Organization founder and Little Rock, Arkansas, native Lorenzo Lewis struggled with his own mental health issues for years.

“It started with just my story, my own depression, and it’s a national movement,” Lewis explained.

It is a movement that began in 2016 and now consists of more than 1,000 barbers in 15 states who are trained how to listen, detect problems and guide clients to professional help if needed.

The mental health advocate said it is tough getting Black men to the therapist. According to the Office of Minority Health from the U.S Department of Health and Human Services, suicide was the second leading cause of death for African Americans between 15 to 24 in 2019. A year earlier, the rate of suicide for black men was four times higher than for Black women.

In each city, The Confess Project has a partnership with mental health treatment centers where men are encouraged to go if they are having problems that need serious attention.

“Our barbers are pure ‘intervention specialists,’ I like to call them,” Lewis said. “They’re advocates on the front lines, and they really support someone through conversation that can really lead to true impact, true quality of life change.”

Read more at Fox5SanDiego.com.

If this pandemic has had a silver lining, it’s the fact that many more people are now aware of the importance of mental health. Unfortunately, this is in part due to the pandemic’s harrowing effect on people’s mental wellbeing. Just last month, the U.S. Surgeon General declared that young people were facing a mental health crisis. Many therapists have described the uptick in reported mental health concerns across the country as a “second pandemic.”

“COVID-19 has shown people that mental health is real, mental health can be severe, mental health can be difficult to treat, and mental health resources may be difficult to access,” Candice Tate, MD, MBA, medical director at Magellan Healthcare, told Verywell.

The pandemic was unexpected, and the world did not have enough time to prepare for these abrupt changes, Tate added.

National surveys have shown that more than 28% of adults in the U.S. reported having anxiety in the last year and more than 22% reported symptoms of depression. The locations hit hardest by the pandemic also saw the biggest toll on mental health.

This is especially true for people directly working on the frontlines like healthcare workers. One study found that in the U.S., more than 80% of medical staff survey responders had depression symptoms and almost 25% noted they had been thinking about suicide or self-harm. Nearly 50% of medical staff surveyed also said that the pandemic had somewhat or significantly reduced their chances of continuing their work in this field.

This increased awareness has pushed institutions—from schools to the workplace—to start taking the problem seriously by facilitating conversations around the topic. But is this willingness to accept mental health conditions here to stay? Verywell asked experts to weigh in. Many are hopeful that this newfound awareness will guide us in a positive direction for the future.

Read more at VerywellHealth.com.

Understanding Behavioral Health Needs in Refugee, Immigrant, and Asylee Communities

The National Network to Eliminate Disparities in Behavioral Health (the NNED) is pleased to offer a Virtual Roundtable to discuss trauma, culture, and culturally responsive approaches to addressing behavioral health needs. The event will feature a discussion of the unique experience of refugees, immigrants, and asylees with a focus on the layers of trauma throughout and beyond the migration process, as well as on healing and resilience.

Trauma and culture intersect in different ways and shape people’s experiences of trauma and healing. With the added impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, many refugees, immigrants, and asylees experience complex trauma which can affect their emotional and behavioral needs. There are important considerations and often-unfamiliar mental health histories of refugees, immigrants, and asylees that community and mental health providers should understand. Honoring the unique cultural identities of clients and staff is a key aspect of providing culturally responsive, trauma-informed care. In an effort to highlight opportunities for building effective systems that address refugee, immigrant, and asylee mental health needs, panelists will identify promising practices in training, program design, and service delivery.

Learning Objectives:

• The similarities and differences between refugees, immigrants, and asylees that affect mental health (e.g., trends, demographics, and other characteristics).
• The effects on refugee, immigrant, and asylee mental health and trauma before, during, and after the migration process.
• How communities can build culturally responsive, trauma-informed systems and programs that effectively facilitate access to mental health care for refugees, immigrants, and asylees.
• How to build capacity and increase access for trauma informed and mental health care as well as support for refugees, immigrants, and asylees.

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

This NNED Virtual Roundtable was hosted by the NNED National Facilitation Center and SAMHSA’s Office of Behavioral Health Equity in partnership with SAMHSA’s Mental Health Technology Transfer Center Network Coordinating Office.

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