“19. Wellness Works” in “Faith Made Flesh”

19 WELLNESS WORKS Community Reflection

Amaya Noguera-Mujica

The Community Responsive Wellness Program for the African American/Black communities of Sacramento (previously known as the Trauma Informed Wellness Program) was launched in 2021 from the work and efforts of the Black Child Legacy Campaign. For BCLC to achieve its mission of reducing Black deaths in the Sacramento area, there grew the recognition of the need for mental health services specifically designed to address the needs of Black communities.

Since its creation in 2015, BCLC has made visible the numerous factors that contribute to the mental health crises in the Black community and has played a leading role in devising a layered response to the oppressive dynamics that directly affect the health and well-being of Black people of all backgrounds. As a result of these efforts, a nuanced and responsive approach to addressing historic barriers to mental health care emerged. Today, a mental health delivery system is providing services to Sacramento’s Black community from multiple entry points.

In the wake of the police killing of Stephon Clark in 2018, the Sacramento County Division of Behavioral Health Services and local stakeholders formed the Cultural Competence Committee Ad Hoc Workgroup. This workgroup was charged with designing community listening sessions to give African American/Black community members an opportunity to reflect on how trauma has affected their community and to express their needs and desires for a more responsive social welfare system. As a result of these sessions, the community developed a recommendation for a new prevention and early intervention program that would address the mental health and wellness needs of the African American/Black community. From the outset, this initiative was inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community members who also experienced or were exposed to high rates of trauma.

BCLC’s profound impact is now widely recognized and unquestionable. Throughout the Black community of Sacramento, there is widespread praise and acclaim for its services. However, there are still great challenges: the residual effects of generations of oppressive conditions, collective trauma, and pain are still quite acute and prevalent. Collectively, we draw inspiration and insight from Joy DeGruy:

We can experience this injury (trauma) physically, emotionally, psychologically, and/or spiritually. Traumas can upset our equilibrium and well-being. If a trauma is severe enough, it can distort our attitudes and beliefs. Such distortions often result in dysfunctional behaviors, and unwanted consequences, this pattern is magnified exponentially when a person repeatedly experiences severe trauma, and it is much worse when the traumas are caused by human beings. (2005, 8)

In November 2020, the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors declared racism a public health crisis. Their acknowledgment, although helpful in that it recognized the source of the mental health crisis, came too late. Over the years there have been too many casualties of police and neighborhood violence to count. Racism in its institutional, structural, and interpersonal forms has been a threat to the mental health of Black people for many years. For this reason, when we talk about mental health in the Community Responsive Wellness Program, we acknowledge how conditions such as poverty, unemployment, housing, and food security, as well as inadequate education, contribute to prevalent mental health problems. We recognize that these conditions undermine the mental health and well-being of many Black people and place large numbers of children at risk of future trauma.

In cities throughout the United States, it is evident that it is not safe for Black people to not be treated for mental illness. In too many cases, Black people with untreated mental illnesses are perceived and treated as a criminal threat. Many of the residents we work with have witnessed the firsthand effects of navigating racist, unresponsive mental health systems and the dangers of being forced to rely on law enforcement to address mental health needs. Police officers and institutions that are ostensibly designed to help, such as social service agencies, are frequently unable to provide the mental health support that people direly need. For this reason, it is so important that we respond to the mental health crisis collectively and with a sense of urgency.

The work of the Community Responsive Wellness Program is just beginning. In coming years, we aim to improve mental health services in the Sacramento area by fulfilling our vision and mission.

Community Responsive Wellness Program’s Vision and Mission

We envision a revitalized and healthy Black community in Sacramento. We believe this is possible through an increased sense of agency, connectedness, and awareness of health and wellness needs, greater participation in support services, and trusting relationships with mental health service providers (MHSPs). We envision MHSPs who actively seek to understand the context for the prevalent mental health needs in Sacramento’s Black community, develop programming and services that respond to those needs, and provide intervention and preventive support to Black individuals and families.

To realize this vision, we commit to the following four actions:

educating the public on common mental health needs and wellness practices for Black people in Sacramento
supporting access to culturally responsive mental health services
building the capacity of mental health service providers to identify and be responsive to commonly occurring mental health needs within the Black community
ensuring that service providers maintain an accurate account of the context of mental health needs in Sacramento’s Black communities

Realizing our mission and vision will take time and work. In the short term, our primary goals are to normalize conversations regarding mental health, thereby reducing the stigma many attach to receiving mental health support. By doing so, we believe that we can collectively work toward healing.

One of the most successful groups to come out of BCLC is Healing the Hood and the work of its crisis response team. This team serves to support individuals and families in crisis, and its members make themselves available around the clock to respond to crises in the community. Many team members have experienced trauma themselves. Their insights and understanding make it possible for them to support others in need and thereby help bring about a reduction in Black child deaths. Although the work performed by this team has been phenomenal, it has also become clear that its members are also in need of mental health support. They have become first responders, and if they are to continue to serve in this capacity, they will need help.

Because of BCLC’s work we can better understand where gaps in services are present. This has made it possible to steadily provide more strategic support to our community partners and the larger communities that we serve. The good news is that BCLC’s efforts have contributed to a reduction in Black child deaths. However, there is more work to be done. The harmful effects of police-sanctioned violence witnessed worldwide, with little to no consequence, continue to traumatize the Black community. Additionally, the heavy economic strains and health burdens created by the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing effects of intergenerational poverty have left many Black communities in dire need of mental health services and prevention programs that can provide healing and care on a large scale.

Although there is much work that needs to be done to improve Black mental health in this country, BCLC is showing that we can take decisive action to make tangible improvements. The newly created Community Responsive Wellness Program is a prime example of the ongoing work that is needed to strengthen mental health support in Black communities. We must ensure that all members of the Black community can turn their attention from merely surviving to promoting a holistic approach to wellness. To address the needs of adolescents who are in the midst of a major mental health crisis, senior citizens who are too often suffering from prolonged isolation, and many others who are stressed out by racism and economic uncertainty, we have to continue to rely on our creativity, dedication, and understanding of the complexities of our oppression to create and design programs that both prevent negative outcomes and increase the likelihood of positive outcomes. If we want to see flourishing in our communities, we must do this work on a larger scale.

The goal of the Community Responsive Wellness Program is to create opportunities for Black people to heal. We do this while acknowledging that we are an extremely diverse people, encompassing all our intersectional identities. We found that it is imperative to include those from the LGBTQ community, recent immigrants and refugees, and others who are frequently marginalized and silenced despite their needs. The complexities of how Black bodies are seen, felt, and received in this country make it difficult to design solutions and prevention programs, but that does not mean we cannot try our best. We can learn from successful community-oriented projects such as the Black Child Legacy Campaign to develop new programs that can respond to the needs of the most deeply impacted and vulnerable members of our communities.

REFERENCE

DeGruy, Joy. 2005. Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing. Portland, OR: Joy DeGruy Publications.

20. The Fire This Time