Bridging the mental health gap for communities of color

There is a day for seemingly everything these days and July and a month and this is an important one. July is National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month and a local organization is helping to bridge the gap for communities of color to gain access to mental health services and treatment. Here to talk about this is Victoria Stinson. She's the founder of Victory Starts Now. Victoria, thanks for being with me. Thank you so much for having me. You are LA-based. Explain to everyone what Victory Starts Now is and what it does. Victory Starts Now has been in operation for the last 11 years and focuses on helping individuals with mental health issues, substance abuse issues, and oftentimes folks that are coming from homelessness reintegrate back into society after incarceration. And a month like National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month is so important for this work because one thing that we've noticed doing this work is mental illness doesn't discriminate, but access to care still does. And whereas mental health affects every community, not every community has equal access to care and we are one of the organizations that believes in this work and how important it is to bridge and make that access more available for all communities. Why are so many people of color still not receiving mental health treatment? Did you just touch on it, the fact that access is more difficult? Yeah, access is a really big one. It's really important to note that people don't receive help because they don't want to. It's more than that. A lot of times because it could feel out of reach for people. Sometimes it could be financial. Sometimes it's transportation or language. Sometimes it's the worry of being judged or they've been taught that mental health struggles should stay within families. And sometimes it's, you know, fear of government systems. When you think of things like the Tuskegee experiments that were done on African Americans, it could definitely affect their ability or desire to want to reach out for help. How often is it a cultural, does it all start culturally? You mentioned there are, in many families, it's not to be discussed depending on how you were raised. So every culture is different, right? But many families place tremendous value on strength, resilience, and protecting the family reputations. Sometimes what can happen is unintentionally it makes it harder for someone to admit they're struggling. And one of our goals is to help people understand that asking for help is not weakness. It's actually one of the strongest decisions that an individual can make. How does your organization, Victory Starts Now, how does it address these barriers that we're talking about? We remove barriers instead of expecting people to overcome them on their own. And we do this by providing housing, counseling, case management, psychiatric services, life skills, employment support, and daily structure. Our belief is this, is that when someone's basic needs are met, they're much more able to engage in treatment and begin healing. Go ahead. And healing doesn't only happen in therapy sessions. Our clients participate in art and gardening and cleaning projects and physical activity, life skills, cooking, community outings, volunteer opportunities. We truly believe that purpose is therapeutic. And that's one of the things that we strive to give our clients every single day. Let me give you some stats that I see here, that 61% of Black adults living with a mental illness receive no treatment. Again, that's 61% for Black adults compared to 64% of Hispanics and 67% of Asians. That is compared to 47% of white adults. So it seems that the Asian community has the biggest numbers in terms of not seeking help. Absolutely. We have had the privilege of learning from our clients about the barriers that they face. And our responsibility is to remove those barriers so everyone has an opportunity to receive quality mental health care. When we're talking about family systems or cultural differences that may make it harder for some folks to ask for help than others, that is, again, something that we can address and help through information. If we can become available in the communities, most of VSN's facilities are in communities where the individuals that need the most help live every day. If we can exist in these communities, if we can figure out how to make the care seem like something that is easy to get, they won't be punished, they won't be ridiculed, they won't be judged for it, that's the only way to overcome it. Because to overcome a family belief or a cultural belief, it's really, really hard. And luckily, things like the internet exist now. This is those things where the internet is actually a really good thing because it's an ability to spread information and to let people know like, no, help is good. You're not weak. Get help. We as a nation have to figure out a way of how do we help people before they're in crisis. And we can teach families and cultures that as well. Let me just jump in and ask you that then. What are some of the warning signs that family members or loved ones look for when someone may be struggling with their mental health but doesn't want to talk about it? That's such a great question. Because you don't need to be a therapist to notice when someone you love is different than they usually are. So look for things like they're withdrawn from family, they're sleeping much more or much less, they're more irritable, they're not interested in the things that they're usually interested in, changes in hygiene, more substance use, hopeless comments, things like that. Those are the warning signs. When you're seeing those things, start researching and looking for help because organizations like Victory Starts now exist for this purpose exactly. We want to help people before they're in crisis and that help is healing. How has your work changed you? I mean, you're the founder of this organization, you do incredible work. How has it changed you? I think that I've had, Victory Starts now has served thousands of people from underserved communities every day and learning from our clients about the barriers that they face and our responsibilities to help remove those barriers has grown. If anything, I am, I miss work to be the privilege of a lifetime and I'm hungrier than ever to help. Because you see how mental health, substance use, things like that affect every single day. All right, well she is Victoria Stinson and we thank her for hopping on the Fox Local Stream. She is the founder of a non-profit that is based in Los Angeles. It's called Victory Starts now. Is the website victorystartsnow.org? Okay, victorystartsnow.org. Very good, Victoria, thank you so much.