Bridge over troubled waters

Abstract

Meeting the mental health needs of black children will take more than just increasing access to mental health services and early identification. It also will require a critical evaluation of the practices and models being used to diagnose and treat mental health concerns. Frameworks have been established that use a positive, strengths-based, culturally appropriate approach in working with black children and adolescents. These models recognize that while black youth go through the same developmental processes as nonblack youth (e.g., puberty, identity, and maturation), culture and context play a unique role in their lives. School-based mental health clinics, wellness centers, and using peers as first responders are all proven solutions to help improve the mental health of not only black students but all students.

Bridging the gap: A pilot study of a lay health worker model to decrease child mental health stigma and promote parents’ professional help-seeking for Black/African American children.

“…Though disparities in Black/African American children’s access to mental health care have been outlined for decades (Alegria et al, 2010; Cokley et al, 2014), widespread efforts to improve access to care for Black/African American children have not maximized key help-seeking pathways such as building on FBMHP for this population. Given increasing societal stressors identified as exacerbating mental health concerns, including recently intensified racial tensions in the U.S. (Saleem et al, 2020) and coronavirus related disruptions to usual social, behavioral, and academic development opportunities (Singh et al, 2020), it is especially imperative that culturally relevant efforts to address mental health care needs for Black/African American children be implemented to bridge the gap in care.…”

“…Unmet mental health needs are especially pronounced among children from racial/ethnic minority backgrounds, including Black/African American children, and children living in rural counties with limited financial and health-related resources (Cokley et al, 2014; Holm-Hansen, 2009). In addition to Black/African American children being less likely to receive needed mental health care compared to racial/ethnic majority (i.e., White/European American) children (Alegria et al, 2010), recent national research shows that the suicide rate among Black/African American children aged 5–11 years has steadily increased since 1993 and now almost doubles that of White/European American children (Bridge et al, 2015; Sheftall et al, 2016).…”

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Unmet mental health needs among children in the United States (U.S.) are at a critical status (Kimball & Miller, 2015;Perou et al, 2013), with less than half of children receiving needed care (Whitney & Peterson, 2019). Unmet mental health needs are especially pronounced for racial/ethnic minority children, including Black/African American children (Alegria et al, 2010;Cokley et al, 2014), whose rates of suicide among those aged 5-11 years has increased in the past two decades (Bridge et al, 2015). Culturally responsive strategies that build on common mental health help-seeking pathways for Black/African American families are needed to improve access to care.

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University school training model: Dismantling anti-Blackness and eradicating racism through ecologically grounded training and systemic school reform.

“…Due to many barriers to seeking and receiving mental health services, K-12 schools provide the majority of mental health services for youth (Adelman & Taylor, 2010) and especially BIPOC youth (Cokley et al, 2015). Counseling psychologists are uniquely positioned to provide transformative intersectionally cultural responsive counseling and consultation services to populations and school systems negatively impacted by racism, White supremacy, and anti-Blackness; collaboratively remove barriers to academic achievement; and contribute to a more culturally responsive, antiracist, and socially just society (Helms, 2015).…”

Exploring the Impact of Increasing the Number of Black Men in Professional Psychology

“…For example, many urban school psychologists often are unable to provide needed clinical services due to heavy assessment loads and skewed student-counselor ratios (Graves et al, 2014). Additional Black male school psychologists may help to relieve the heavy caseloads, stabilize student-counselor ratios, and address the psychological stressors that inevitably impact academic functioning and performance of Black pupils (Cokley et al, 2015).…”