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The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, in collaboration with the HHS/Office of Minority Health, hosted a NNED Virtual Roundtable, Creating Supportive Systems to Improve Mental Health Outcomes for Young African American Boys: An Urgent Conversation, to increase awareness about the mental health needs and vulnerabilities of African American boys and about culturally appropriate mental health promotion and early intervention strategies.  The event feature emerging data on the age-related disparities in mental health outcomes for African American boys and related policy and practice implications.

While childhood suicide is rare, a recent analysis concluded that “among children aged 5 to 12 years, black children had a significantly higher incidence of suicide than white children.” (Bridge, et al., 2018) As part of a call for action, the Virtual Roundtable featured national experts discussing cross-system approaches for developing workforce and community service capacity to address the negative mental health trend for African American boys.  Panelists shared ways emerging data is influencing work in early childhood settings, family and community systems, policy, and research.

Participants learned about strategies for mental health promotion and early intervention that can be replicated in their respective communities.

View the recording, panelist contact information and resources on NNEDshare!

Bridge JA, Horowitz LM, Fontanella CA, et al. Age-Related Racial Disparity in Suicide Rates Among US Youths From 2001 Through 2015. JAMA Pediatr. 2018;172(7):697–699. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2018.0399

Because there were more questions than time allowed us to answer, we invite you to join a follow-up call with presenters at 11:00 AM ET on Friday, September 28, when you’ll have an opportunity to continue the conversation. To join the call, dial:
Telephone number: 1-888-677-0241
Participant code: 2684339#

If you have questions you would like to have answered during the September 28 call, please send them to OMHMedia@hhs.gov with the subject: Virtual Roundtable

Panelists:

Dr. Rosemarie Allen  |  Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Metropolitan State University of Denver

Rosemarie Allen, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Metropolitan State University of Denver.  Her classes are focused on ensuring teachers are aware of how issues of equity, bias, privilege, and power impact teaching practices.  She is also the founder and CEO of the Institute for Racial Equity & Excellence (IREE) which serves as the lead agency for ensuring equity in educational practices.  Dr. Allen’s life’s work is focused on reducing the number of children of color suspended and expelled from early childhood programs.

Rosemarie has served in directorship roles with the Colorado Department of Human Services where she was responsible for the State’s child care licensing program, the federal child care assistance program, the redesign of the State’s quality rating and improvement system, the implementation of the State’s professional development plan, and assisted in the creation of Colorado’s early learning guidelines.  Rosemarie serves on the Pyramid Equity Program team, is a respected keynote speaker, and has the distinct honor of being appointed as a “Global Leader” representing the United States at World Conferences.  Dr. Allen also served on President Obama’s “My Brother’s Keeper” (MBK) initiative, Early Childhood Task Force.  In that role, she was the national expert on implicit bias and culturally responsive practices, speaking at conferences across the country.  Rosemarie earned her B. A. from California State University, Masters of Education from Lesley University and Doctorate Degree in Leadership for Equity in Education from the University of Colorado, Denver. 

Dr. Jeffrey Bridge  |  Director of the Center for Suicide Prevention and Research, Professor of Pediatrics, Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, Principal Investigator at The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s 

Jeffrey Bridge, Ph.D., is Director of the Center for Suicide Prevention and Research in the Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and Professor of Pediatrics, Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. His research focuses on the epidemiology of suicidal behavior in young people, neurocognitive vulnerability to suicidal behavior, screening for suicide risk in medical settings, and on improving the quality of care for suicidal youth.

Dr. Derrick Gordon  |  Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine, Director of the Program on Male Development, Core scientist in the Community Research Core of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA)

Derrick Gordon, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry (Psychology Section) at Yale University School of Medicine, is the Director of the Program on Male Development in the Division of Prevention and Community Research of the Department of Psychiatry, and is a Core scientist in the Community Research Core of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA). Dr. Gordon has considerable experience in intervention and prevention development having served as an investigator on several federal, NIH, and state-funded projects and studies focused on those factors that either support or undermine men transitioning from prison back to the community; the engagement of low-income, non-custodial fathers; the identification and service of adolescent fathers committed to child protection services; and men mandated to batterer intervention groups in the community. He is currently a co-investigator and a minority supplement recipient on an NIH funded project that examines the STI risk of heterosexual young men to their pregnant female partners. As part of his supplement, Dr. Gordon is interested in understanding how the young men use preventive health care services and the factors that either facilitate or inhibit their access. Dr. Gordon’s work with men has and continues to focus on increasing the health of men and their positive involvement in family and community life. In his mentorship role, pre- and postdoctoral fellows get to explore with Dr. Gordon how issues like adolescent fatherhood, low-income fatherhood status, transitioning from prison to the community, and men’s access and use of health care services impact their efforts to be healthy community members. Overall Dr. Gordon in his research seeks to identify those factors that enhance the access and use of preventive and indicated health care services by men on the “fringes.” 

Dr. Gail Mattox  |  Professor and Chair at the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences

Gail Mattox, M.D., currently serves as Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM). She is a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology with board certification in psychiatry and sub-specialty board certification in child and adolescent psychiatry. She is a graduate of Meharry Medical College and completed psychiatry training at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Mattox is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Dr. Mattox is also a member of Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society and the Arnold P. Gold Humanism in Medicine Honor Society.

In addition to teaching, patient care, community service and administrative duties, Dr. Mattox was instrumental in obtaining grant funding from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), to establish the National Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Center for Excellence in Behavioral Health.  This Center of Excellence, located in the Department of Psychiatry/Cork Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine, is designed to promote behavioral health equity and workforce diversity. She currently serves as Project Director. 

Reta Stanley  |  President/CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Flint and Genesee County

Reta Stanley is President/CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Flint and Genesee County. Stanley has served several decades working to place youth in structured, safe, and empowering mentoring relationships with community role models. Focusing on the needs of vulnerable youth, under her leadership the agency signed on with the My Brother’s Keeper Initiative working to improve literacy and open college and career pathways.

Elijah Wheeler  |  Acting Director and Social Justice Director of the Montgomery County (MD.) Collaboration Council

Elijah Wheeler serves as both the Acting Director and Social Justice Director of the Montgomery County (MD.) Collaboration Council. The Collaboration Council is a local management board which serves as a quasi-non-profit agency charged with identifying issue areas in the County on behalf of children, youth and families and then working with government and other partners to target resources and supports to the community to redress disparities. In his role as Social Justice Director, he is charged with working alongside County partners to ensure the fair and equitable treatment of people of color who interact with various systems and agencies. He has worked on a number of issues including reducing disproportionate minority contact for youth of color who come into contact with the juvenile justice system and policies to spur the reduction of the school to prison pipeline.

Elijah also serves in the role as chair for Montgomery County’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative. He is a 2014/15 National Juvenile Justice Network Y.J.L.I. Fellow Alumni and a 2016 Center for Urban Families Public Leadership Institute Fellow Alumni. 

Facilitator:

Brandon J. Johnson  |  Public Health Advisor in the Suicide Prevention Branch, GPO for the Garrett Lee Smith (GLS) State/Tribal Youth Suicide Prevention, GPO National Strategy for Suicide Prevention (NSSP) Adult Suicide Prevention, GPO for the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC)

Brandon J. Johnson, M.H.S. serves as a Public Health Advisor in the Suicide Prevention Branch at SAMHSA.  In this role, Brandon serves as a Government Project Officer for the Garrett Lee Smith (GLS) State/Tribal Youth Suicide Prevention grant program, the Zero Suicide grant program, and the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention (NSSP) Adult Suicide Prevention grant program where he is also the Program Manager.  Brandon is also the GPO for the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) that provides suicide-specific materials, webinars, and training to organizations and communities all over the country working to reduce suicides.  Brandon is also the Co-Lead of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention’s Faith Communities Task Force. 

On behalf of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), we invite you to participate in a Virtual Roundtable: Voices from the Field, the Impact of Opioid Addiction in Diverse Communities.  This Roundtable will be convened to discuss opioid addiction and treatment in communities of colors and strategies for community-based organizations to engage in cross-systems work.

In addition to raising awareness and increasing knowledge of participants around opioid addiction and treatment, the Roundtable dialogue will aim to draw attention to cultural considerations, persistent disparities, and the cultural divide that play a role in the opioid crisis.

Join us on Wednesday, May 9, 2018 at 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. (EST) for this Roundtable!

Register now!

View the recording of the Roundtable

Related resources are now available on the NNEDshare website

Panelists:

Margarita Alegría, Ph.D. |  Chief of the Disparities Research Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital

Dr. Alegría obtained her B.A. in Psychology from Georgetown University in 1978 and her Ph.D. from Temple University in 1989. Since 2004, Alegría has been a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, obtaining a dual appointment in the Department of Medicine in 2016. For 14 years prior, Alegría served as a Professor in the Graduate School of Public Health and as the Director of the Center for Evaluation and Sociomedical Research at the University of Puerto Rico. In the summer of 2015, she became the Chief of the Disparities Research Unit at the Massachusetts General Hospital (formerly the Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research at Cambridge Health Alliance, 2002-2015). 

Alegría’s research focuses on the improvement of health care services delivery for diverse racial and ethnic populations, conceptual and methodological issues with multicultural populations, and ways to bring the community’s perspective into the design and implementation of health services. In October 2011, she was elected as a member of the National Academy of Medicine in acknowledgment of her scientific contributions to her field. She has also been a recipient of notable awards, such as the Mental Health Section Award by the American Public Health Association (2003), the Health Disparities Innovation Award by the National Institutes of Minority Health (2008), and the Simone Bolivar Award by the American Psychiatry Association (2009).

Devin Reaves, M.S.W.  |  Executive Director, Pennsylvania Harm Reduction Coalition

Devin is a person living in recovery since 2007.  He is a community organizer and grassroots advocacy leader. Devin has worked on the expansion of access to the lifesaving medication Naloxone, implantation of 911 Good Samaritan policies, and the development of youth oriented systems. He wants to build constituencies of consequence that will lead to meaningful public health policy changes around substance use disorders. Devin is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Harm Reduction Coalition (PAHRC).

The mission of PAHRC is to promote the health, dignity, and human rights of individuals who use drugs and communities impacted by drug use. Recognizing that social inequity, criminalization, and stigma silence those affected most, we advocate for policies that improve the quality of life for people who use drugs, people in recovery, and their communities.

Devin received a Master of Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice with a focus on community and organizational change and has a BA in Human Services from Lynn University. Devin also serves on the Camden County Addiction Awareness Task Force and the Board of Directors for the Association of Recovery Schools.

Dr. J Rocky Romero  |  Director of Health Programs, El Centro Family Health in Espanola

J Rocky Romero is a former Assistant Professor for New Mexico Highlands University School of Social Work in Albuquerque, NM and is also a graduate of NMHU. He served as the co-chair for the Governor Richardson appointed NM Higher Education Departments Cultural Competency Task-Force.  Dr. Romero has also served as an Executive Council member for the NM-Consortium for Behavioral Health Training and Research (NM-CBHTR).  In addition, Dr. Romero completed his doctoral studies at the University of New Mexico in Language, Literacy and Socio-cultural studies and graduated in 2016. He is focused on culturally appropriate treatment while focusing in health disparities and access for health and mental health care in New Mexico for people of color. 

In his role at NMHU-SSW in ABQ from 2003-2016, Dr. Romero has conceptualized, implemented, and received legislative and Bernalillo County funding for two evidence based and nationally, certified with excellence, SW student training clinics focusing on training SW interns to be culturally aware and competent; while providing direct mental health services to the Albuquerque community.  Dr. Romero is also a national trainer for the Matrix Institute on Addictions and the National Hispanic/Latino Addiction Technology Transfer Center.  Dr. Romero is also a native of Northern New Mexico and has served on many boards, committees and task forces to address the needs of New Mexico’s students and citizens. Dr. Romero is currently the Director of Health Programs for El Centro Family Health in Espanola, NM which serves the Taos, Espanola, and Las Vegas regions across 22,000 square miles.  He is also the Chief Operations Officer for New Mexico Hope an LLC serving people with substance use disorder.  New Mexico Hope was recently awarded a contract by Bernalillo County Department of Behavioral Health Services for peer support specialist ran community engagement teams (CETs).

Jacob Davis, MPH  | Tribal Program Director, Prevent Child Abuse North Dakota

Jacob earned his graduate degree from North Dakota State University and was the first graduate in the MPH program with the American Indian Public Health specialization. He has over ten years of experience working with American Indian populations through various positions at both tribal and state academic institutions. Jacob also serves as a board member for the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition as well as being an active member of the North Dakota Cancer Coalition. At PCAND, his duties include working with federal, state, and tribal agencies to facilitate consistent access to family programming and services throughout the state.