Good evening sorors fratter friends and guests this is Brandy Armstrong with Delta Sigma Theta sorority Incorporated the national technology committee we are pleased to present tonight’s webinar on our Facebook and YouTube channels for our respective organizations I will now turn it over to Dr Charlotte Freeman National chair of
Physical and mental health subcommittee for Delta Sigma Theta sororia Incorporated Dr Freeman good evening good evening I am Dr Charlotte Freeman and I am excited to welcome you to a special edition of our Wellness Wednesday which is a part of our national initiative on mental heal
For live well tonight you know we are just excited excited to be partnering with Johnson and Johnson but more importantly we are we are partnering with the men of CA Kappa alpas saai Fraternity Incorporated we certainly want to just acknowledge our national president Elsie cook holes and our national chair for
Program Planning and Development Pamela E Smith we want to right now ask you to call a family member or a friend or definitely a lady of DST and we certainly ask you to make sure you reach out to the men of Kappa Alphas side so that they can join us right now because
We’re going to have a fabulous event tonight so we want to make sure that we understand that we are going to have a panel that’s going to be talking statistics the challenges of mental health during coid and strategies to help you cope I’m am I am delighted to introduce to
Facebook and our YouTube audience my co-host for this evening Antonio Martz who is the national Vice chair for health and wellness for Kappa alpas side Antonio thank you for joining us on this collaboration with Johnson and Johnson hey good evening Charlotte I am delighted that we are um
With this opportunity um one of the best things that um it’s just not coincidental that we’re doing this in the month of November because the month of November it’s Men’s Health Awareness Month well we are happy to all my brothers absolutely so for all my brothers that are out there and for all
Their Silhouettes and all the ladies of Delta Sigma Theta that love the crimson and cream as well make sure that you’re speaking to your loved ones make sure you’re speaking to your your loved ones that are men and and encouraging them to to be mindful of their health and then
Along with um calling someone make sure you’re sharing the uh the link on Facebook and YouTube so so the others will pick it up so with that said Charlotte I hand it back over to you well you know in the world of Delta and physical and mental health our
Signature program is called live well and we have for the past 14 months we have been working and monthly providing uh workshops on Mental Health we’ve covered topics such as intimate partner violence depression anxiety uh we’ve talked about belonging what about our faith um grief and loss so I understand
That you have a complimentary program called Brother’s Keeper could you tell us a little bit about that sorry about that Charlotte um so with mental health being one of our platform initiatives we are always out to make sure that our brothers are okay U one of
The things that our our grand pole Mark and our past Grand pole marking and I must say um bringing welcome on behalf of our 35th Grand pollark brother Jimmy McMichaels he is extremely passionate about health and wellness within regards to our fraternity and and one of those
Things and key things is is mental health um so you know so we just want to make sure that our brothers are are are are okay in this in this difficult time uh along with what we’re dealing with you know with stress of of of being the head of household and everything that
Comes from being a black male in America we just want to make sure that hey you’re okay and if you’re not it’s okay to be not be okay we just encourage our brothers to speak up and to be you know be courageous to to let someone know what’s truly going
On love that our organizations recognize that when in our communities we really need to ensure that we have mental wellness and I’m glad that we’re at the Forefront and many of our other D9 organizations are as well you know but we have something else in common what
About this good health wins you know we both are involved in good health wins we are in fact that’s really part of why we’re even having this Workshop tonight right we’re talking about mental health in the era of coid and I know both of our organizations have worked really uh
Diligently to inform the community encourage them to um to be aware wear their mask even though they may think coid is over we know it’s not um so I know that we in within Delta we’ve been giving out seed grams to our chapters um at a minimum of $1,000 to help educate
Their communities um Health fares panels table events creating video infomercials pastors have signed on with us health professionals and just really credible Messengers within the community community tell us about what Kapp is doing so just like just like Delta um Catholics have been great this movement called Good Health wins uh
We’re doing just things similar to what you’re doing in the communities we’ve established the many grant program where we incent our uh alumni chapters as well as our undergraduate chapters to promote vaccine awareness and then one of the things that we do with regards to our undergraduates to encourage them to
Spread the message on their uh CH their campuses is we created an ambassador program where our undergraduates started eyes and ears or our fraternity and they speak to other undergraduates they speak to alumni members we send them to our national leadership conferences where they speak on the program I mean we have
Truly truly embraced good health good health wins and so uh I’m not sure if you know but it what it was Kappa that coined the term we’re all in for good health wins so we are truly vested and we love this program uh good health wins well you know what I’m going let
You you have that I’m going let you have that that that is absolutely you know I love that and um to know that we’re all as a D9 organization and other Civic organizations are working to make sure that we are healthy that our families live that our communities Thrive and
We’re just two organizations in a big pool of people who are working to make sure so we really want to expand this conversation you’ve heard um Antonio and I talk about what our organizations are doing but let’s hear from some real professionals we have a phenomenal panel
Um brother Antonio and I have worked together to try to outline this along with J Johnson and Johnson um who wanted to make sure that we were coming together to promote mental health and wellness so leading this charge um and being the moderator the incable Dr Jabar SW and he the mdal ex
He’s medical executive at Johnson and johnon so knowing that he and Johnson and Johnson wanted to make sure that they were a part of this conversation with Kappa and Delta and all of our friends in Facebook land and YouTube Dr SW terrific thank you Dr Freeman and good afternoon everyone I bring you
Greetings from uh Johnson and Johnson but also as a fall 2000 initia of the ZET a chapter of cap Alphas side Fraternity Incorporated and I’m excited to be here and to provide uh support in the way of a moderator for this outstanding program you know but to set
This tone I want to make sure that we understand how the global mental health landscape was impacted profoundly uh by coid 19 and it brought to the Forefront vital issues of mental health being our societies have faced a Cascade of challenges with many individuals grappling with heightened anxiety and a
Rise in mental health conditions such as depression and PTSD and this has been acutely felt among young people and women who have borne the brunt of isolation and disruption in their life patterns and so as we delve into today’s panel hosted by Delta Sigma Theta sorority Incorporated and cap alphai
Fraternity Incorporated we will explore the multifaceted impact of the pandemic on Mental Health particularly among communities of color we will also examine dis arities in mental health access the influence of systemic issues like racism and socioeconomic inequality and the potential of digital interventions to bridge gaps in care and
So with that said as I mentioned I’m Dr Swain a medical executive for health system Integrations at Johnson and Johnson and a proud sponsor of this webcast alongside Delta Sigma Theta sorority Incorporated and cap Alpha side Fraternity Incorporated but we’d now like to give this conversation over to some of our
Panelists who are esteemed guests that have backgrounds deeply rooted in mental health and so without further Ado I’d like to bring to the screen our extin panelists to participate in this conversation terrific and so with us we have Dr Bron Dr Williams and Mr Sams and I’ll each have them introduce themselves
And then we’ll take a deep dive into their mental health background and their experiences with coid 19 and mental health particularly among communities of color we’ll start with Dr Bren could you bring us greetings sir uh good evening everyone it is a proud moment that I represent cap Al incorpor and bring
Information to our communities that is so needed in terms of mental health I am the vice chairman for mental health and wellness of Capa sou attorney Incorporated I am a practiceing psychiatrist and medical director of a Community Mental Health Center uh I am so proud of the fact that our
Fraternities and sororities have have taken the issue of Health and Wellness for our communities totally and and and providing leadership in that in that regard thank you very much we’ll now bring Dr Williams to the stage Dr Williams I believe you’re on mute okay hi I’m Dr Jackie Williams again I’m
Aite clinical nurse specialist and I’m a member of program planning and development for Delta sigmaa I also am clinically employed as a clinical nurse at Alama Health System John George Hospital in St Leandro California welcome And next we have our therapist Mr Sams good evening everyone my name is Jarvis Sams I’m a member of cap apicide Fraternity Incorporated uh fall 1992 Epsilon me chapter which is Flor Memorial University um I’ve been a mental health professional for the last 12 years and along with my wife we own
A uh our own counseling program where we’ve been dealing with mental health for the last two years in a private practice setting thank you so much awesome well thank you thank you guest for for introducing yourselves and so now we’ll just jump right in and so
As well known to many across the country the co 19 pandemic presented very unique challenges many of us have faced them from a physical perspective often many have faced them from a financial perspective but something that we all can’t really see or touch is the mental
Aspect and so I know each of our panelists probably have an opinion about what the I guess construct of how mental health has been affected and and engaged with the co 19 pandemic and so I’ll start with our our first guest Dr Bron can you share with us a little bit about
Your experience with coid 19 pandemic and how the social and the economic stressors have uniquely impacted the mental health of people of color during this this uh very ous time yes sir Dr Dr uh being the medical director of the community mid Health Center one of the
Things that we noticed initially was the fact that as you mentioned before the social isolation uh when the pandemic came into being the fact that people were limited in terms of going places because of the fear of going out and and and uh getting the virus it led them to remain home and
With social and economic disparities as we know a lot of people did not have the opportunity to get on a computer or even touch base with a medical professional because they had did not have the means to do so with that being said when people started going to uh see their
Physicians that there was a lot of tele medicine going on initially uh during the early stages of the pandemic which made it difficult for a lot of people because people in low so low socioeconomic situations just could didn’t have the means to get on tele medicine so they basically stayed at home and
Prayed the unfortunate part about that is the fact that in in Social being socially isolated like that not only were they missing uh the main aspects of their of their healthare with all their healthc care providers they also was missing a vital component of mental health Wellness which is
Social interaction with people the fact that they’re not able to interact with people carried a significant burden on a lot of people who depend on social uh construct to to basically be well terrific thank you sir for that commentary and we’ll now kind of kind of
Bring it over to Dr Williams I know that in your work you are really entrenched in you know understanding the the stressors that are involved in mental health and uh one thing that was clear through the pandemic is that a lot of disparities were uncovered and I’d like
If you could give us a little bit of kind of a peek under the hood of what disparities have been observed in the access and quality of mental health care for communities of cover during during the pandemic and what are some things that you think can be done to help
Mitigate some of those disparities thank you Dr for that question um we know that in African-Americans that they are Deport disproportionately um affected by risk factors that link them to mental health such things as poverty homelessness violence just to say the a few which are significant challenges in their attempts
To actually access um Quality Mental Health Services um according to the nihd black Americans um currently experience mental health about 20% of the time more than uh our white counterparts some of the major U barriers or stigmas um um barriers or cultural stigma we’ll start there cultural stigma is a huge barrier
In the African-American community and people of colors because we’ve been taught that we’re weak if we seek menol treatment we tend to go to our pastors our clergy our F family and friends uh and other trusted U Messengers instead of actually seeking out uh quality Mental Health Care uh and it’s been a
Long history with that high cost mental health is not cheap high cost and insurance limitations are barriers uh to mental health even if you have insurance there’s always sometime exceptions to getting quality Mental Health Care at the level that one needs that that care thirdly um there are things like um
Provide a bias inequality of care that we find we don’t always see individuals in in Psychiatry that looks like look like us many many folks want to go to providers that look like them so that number is very low according to American Psychiatric association there’s less than 5% of psychiatrists that look like
Us and and sure that numers also low in terms of psychologist marriage and family therapist as well as advanced practice nurses those numbers are very low so trying to find a culturally relevant culturally uh um appropriate type of uh professional to treat them is really really difficult um still in this
Day you wouldn’t think it is but there’s still a lack of diversity there among Mental Health Providers also there’s difficulty navigating the process it’s not easy trying to find a provider uh seek a provider that’s really culturally relevant and a lot of negative past experiences that African-Americans have encountered
As it relates to not only mental health care but physical health care and then a lot of emotional hesitation you know really do I really need help do I really need mental health care or can I wait can I go see the clergy so those are some of the bigger bigger pieces there
Uh in terms of those those barriers terrific thank you for sharing that and so you know from from what you just shared Dr Williams it it feels like um you’re saying that the pandemic exacerbated existing disparities and increased exposure to stresses such as job loss economic hardships and discrimination all of which have
Significant impact on Mental Health moreover uh we also saw increased racist attacks and xenophobia especially against Asians and Pacific Islander communities particularly in the context of thinking that they brought coid 19 over to the US uh and that added to psychological trauma uh that was experienced during that period And so
I’m going to now turn it over to uh Mr Sams and ask can you share with us a little bit around you know systemic issues such as racism and socioeconomic inequalities that could contribute to mental health challenges that uh people of color face thank you Dr swing um I think this
Goes uh back a long ways um not just with mental health but as uh my colleagues actually said earlier it has it’s just Health in general and it goes back to the tusky experiment and breaking down our ability or inability to feel comfortable in a health space um
And who can we trust um so access also is about trust can I trust this person that’s the reason why we look for someone that looks like us often times uh it’s not only the high cost but it’s the the trust aspect and so what I’ve
Learned in my private practice was I had to find a way to bring cost down um so that I could be uh approachable and accessible to to my clients and the clients that were out there now unfortunately we’re unable to to serve everyone right but the reality of it is
Is that that that that’s something that has to happen we have to figure out ways and and different ways so um just culturally it’s just been so many things that we’ve faced uh out here in the field um in the last three or four years has been very interesting in the way that
People have re gotten access to this so um that’s a component that really needs to be uh discussed uh and and considered uh as we move forward awesome thank you for that uh now we’re going to kind of turn the conversation in a different direction and Dr Bron you actually brought this up
When you gave your introduction uh around the uh influence or the importance of telea health and digital interventions and so if you could can you just maybe double click on that a little bit for us and help us to understand how have telea health and other digital interventions have
Utilized to reach and support communities of color with mental health services during and kind of post pandemic sure sure one of the things that uh we initially uh tried to accomplish was getting back in touch with the people that we were seeing uh prior to the the
Pandemic uh when we talk about social isolation most people that I deal with personally uh with serious mental analysis uh they isolated themselves anyway but people with depression which is not as serious as meleon as schizophrenia or some of the other very serious melees people who become depressed
Isolate themselves more often than not and people with anxiety tend to isolate themselves because they don’t want to feel more anxious so getting back in touch with those people was vitally important one of the things that uh we did as a fraternity was uh we had a a
Wakeup call I said we are our brother’s keeper and we have to call our brothers and check on them on a regular basis just because that social interaction that they were getting every month at frat meetings and various other types of get togethers was missing and some people that’s the most social
Interaction they have in their life during those times anyway and and when they socially isolated the depression that they didn’t uh were working their way through with various other coping means uh just wasn’t there any long so uh when we had tele medicine and Communications at first we did telephone
Calls which uh kept us in touch with people but then when they were able to get a little bit of instruction on how to use a most most people have cell phones how to use the the uh the the visual aspect of the cell phone to do
Tele medicine they were very happy to to get that interaction with their therapist again and also with Physicians again so it became vitally important to open up that lines of communication and let them know that they’re not out there alone and that somebody is working on
Ways to to keep them engaged and and and treated terfy thank you sir that was very well said and you know you mentioned that you know there were some patients who had you know serious mental health issues um and I’m wondering if Dr Williams can give us a a little bit
Detail around what are some notable uh conditions that were seeing to be increased by the pandemic and maybe uh some uh maybe from your experience some ways in which uh you recommended they seek help or treatment for those conditions thank you Dr for that question um according to the data that I
Looked at and some of the research that I looked at the two major ones that have increased uh mental health conditions that have increased uh during and since coid one is depression which has gone up to almost over 30% now and the other is anxiety those are the two biggies uh
Prior to the P pandemic I think depression anxiety was around 8.5% so you see the numbers have tremendously gone up and of course we can’t leave out um PTSD that seemed to have gone up also for a number of reasons um because you know as as we
Know during the pandemic uh folks lost their jobs we had an increased job loss that was therefore a decrease in income um more stressors around homeschooling their children uh and not being um able to uh get out as much the whole social issue around social isolation so of course the
Anxiety um anxiety and depression went up quite a bit um looking at um some of the factors that relate to that um again not being able to um socialize and be with other individuals um and you you at the complexities around trying to access appropriate and cultur sensitive mental
Health care which many people don’t want to do in terms of the African in the African-American community so those numbers I can see why they they also went up also separation from family and friends which are factors being socially isolated being in your home not being
Able to go out and participate in the things that you participated in the F in the past and also in many instan is living in overcrowded conditions in your home because everybody’s at home now nobody’s out in the community um so that increases the emotional stress for
Families and on top of that not being able to check on Grandmama or mama or Aunt or Uncle who’s at a distance and worrying about what’s really going on with them because you don’t want to expose them to coid as they age because you know they’re at a higher risk so
Difficulty um knowing what’s going on with family and friends also increases anxiety and um many times the depression because you’re not again um around other people and it really increases your ability to um be sad and be alone and uh some of the DAT is also talked about suicidal uh tenaces and Suicidal
Thoughts going up doing the co um then on top of that we had all the issues around George Floyd and all the other uh uh killings that was that would occurring uh virtual um kinds of things that we could see on TV because we were at home so we’re we’re being exposed to
All of those traumas as you will as we sitting at home all of those things impact anxiety and depression so those numbers have tremendously gone up in both adults and in some instances our children terrific thank you do Dr Williams and so Mr Sams you know with that information that Dr Williams has
Shared you know it appears that we have an increase of some mental conditions that are disproportionately affecting people of color and so I’m going to ask you in your opinion uh you know what are some systemic changes that are needed to ensure Equitable mental health care and
Support for people of color and and and how do you see a way forward in order to help mitigate some of the disparities that we see great thank you so much so I I’ll picky back in this way um and start where I I left off about access right so
If you can give people access so the depression has gone up I believe Dr uh Dr Williams said that 30% the data shows 30% right which is what the data has been showing us and anxiety as well um Talk therapy has been known to help with depression it is it’s actually you don’t
Need medication you can actually go to a talk therapist that’s what I am I’m a talk therapist right I’m going to help you through that but you have to first have access so I’m pivoting in this respect right um the Advent of mental health in um the
Coid era um meant that we had to change the way we did things so talk therapy was typically done in person now we are now doing it via tella Health now we have to teach our clients how to do it via tella health and get them access so
One of the things I did was our video conferencing feature within our our practice management system was free to our clients all they needed was the app and the app was free on their phone so if they had a phone and they had the app they got access to us immediately free
Um and that was something that a lot of people found out immediately like wow I can do this video conferencing thing um so access um the depression is easily um remed if you are doing the work that’s necessary um and working with your other professionals along the way when someone
May need medication however talk therapy has been proven to actually do uh do do great wonders to health people so it’s just changing the access and accessibility to it all um and humans are naturally um social and communal so that was another thing getting them together right making sure that they had
Someone to talk to and I I love that brother Bron said that point of like we found a way to come together as far as whether it was in fra meetings or uh in other social aspects other people were there like hey I’m a former College athlete I cann’t play basketball with
Anybody so I’m literally outside playing by myself because I can do this but you know so you have to figure out ways to actually get out and be available to people and be uh accessible because we we are communal we’re not supposed to be
Cooped up in a in a in a cage if you will that is our home awesome so if I could summarize you know Dr Bron uh opened us up and talked to us a little bit about how telea health and digital Health uh was Paramount to helping to enhance access
And then Dr Williams gave us a background on the increased of incidents of anxiety depression and PTSD something that many of us you know probably can relate to not only from childhood trauma but also trauma and stress from our everyday life and then Mr Sams you you brought up some really important points
Around access and making sure that individuals are aware of where services are and if we can systemically Avail more access to everyone that that will help mitigate some some of the disparities well there are some questions that are coming up in the in the comments and we are at the half hour
Mark and I want to make sure that we give our audience an opportunity uh to get some of their questions answered and so if it’s okay with my panelist we will uh turn to the chat and uh take a few questions there and I’ll give you all three the opportunity to take an
Opportunity to address those questions and so uh looks like first question up um my daughter was at the class of of 2020 and our class lost graduation ceremonies internship opportunities and jobs they feel like the Forgotten class and depression anxiety is high I’m at a
Loss uh as to how to help keep her moving along any recommendations who’d like to take that Mr Mr Sams how about you um yes so so one ideas I oh gotta e hopefully that’s better um one of the things I would say is first and foremost
I I understand that it’s something that that I’ve I I’ve have been dealing with personally working with clients uh one of the things we wanted to do was get them back out into the community um what has happened here in California um with some of the classes what is that they’ve
Been able to go back and experience their senior year with the the the previous class or the previous class classes um I’m actually a professor at a a local institution here in Pasadena and uh the when the class of 2020 actually Circle back and actually uh actually uh
Walk the stage with the class of 2022 when everything coid started to clear up so one of the things I would do is say uh see if there’s a way that she can get back into school and actually working with the institution to try to get those
Internships you know it’s it’s not too late to try to rec re reinvent the will everyone is aware that the class of 2020 has lost out on a lot of opportunities the second piece is to find a a recable um clinician in your area as well as a
Mental health uh professional that may be a doctor of Psychiatry or a psych psychiatric nurse like my my colleagues that are on on the call with me and providing information to uh give access so one of the things what you want to do is depression and anxiety typically come
Up from something called the cognitive distortion um which is a an idea where you make a mountain out of a mole hill right and so Co was a huge mountain I’m not going to call it a mole hill but we have to understand that that that that
Mole hill uh or that mountain is uh we can we can conquer that mountain and it’s just thinking and talking back and saying okay this was just a blipping time um there have been pandemics before but nothing like this where we all had access to to technology and knowing all
This stuff you know I you can think about all the pandemics that have happened previously we have to imagine there was some similar similarities to this but not the same way because not everyone is is as educated and I think most of us are educated and we have more
Information so I’ll stop at this point Thank You terrific and we have a number of questions coming in I’m actually going to ask Dr Freeman’s help to uh Corral some of these so that we get everybody questions so Dr Freeman would you mind pulling the next question
Please yes um and actually it’s related um also to Children um and they would like to know if the panel could touch on mental heal the mental health impact on children during the pandemic Dr Bron do you mind taking that question for us sure well children uh un
Unfortunately and it’s fortunate in my opinion they’re more social than adults and they need each other they they need to be around each other uh for not only because uh communication is is is the best source of learning anything education communication is is is is a must but children
Also uh develop that in terms of their developmental aspects of their lives uh they learn how uh groups work and how to cooperate and how to uh work as a team and how to get along and and so it affects children significantly to be isolated because if they don’t have
That social interaction with their with their peers uh the parents can’t teach them everything about life I wish we could but they actually learn a lot from each other in terms of how to get along and and they don’t have to get along with parents and uncles and aunts and
Grandparents and everything we just love them and that’s all we have to do but in terms of their social interaction and learning how to be around others they have to be together and they have to have that social interaction to in terms of that development no thank you for that you
Know um Mr Sams also commented on the importance of communal and being social Dr Freeman what’s our next question that we have up okay um so in addition to co can the panel discuss mental health concerns in individuals with long-term disabilities and we’ll say in relation to
Co what has been the impact um for those who have long-term uh disabilities Dr Williams you mind helping us with that question okay um in terms of individuals with long-term disabilities we know it depends on the disability there are multiple types of long-term disabilities but um it is
Known that individuals that already have a disability um or probably add an increased risk for coid depending on what that disability is um again one one that has disabilities already has some stressors trying to deal with that disability in itself so you got increased stressors there which is not
Healthy overall in long term um but they would probably be at the same uh um risk factor as other adults within their age category um so and again depending on the dis the disability long-term disability if something that’s a chronic illness um uh like a heart disease or a
Diabetes or um uh rheumatoid arthritis which increases inflammation in the body you’re at a higher risk because you got these comorbid um um conditions so the data does say if you have additional chronic illnesses you’re at a higher risk um exposure for Co so that is a
Fact uh in terms of how one manages that uh again I encourage people as as as everybody else encourages them to get all the vaccines they supposed to get as it relates to coid which also decreases their risk um and to um to uh um not be
Exposed in a large rate to those people who um particularly those who are immunal compromised if you’re immunal compromis you don’t want to have exposure so you want to isolate yourself or wear a mask to keep yourself from being exposed that’s my comments on it Dr Bron might have some additional
Comments no that’s exactly sure that Dr Williams that’s exactly correct you’re at greater uh risk of developing more depression or anxiety with more U complications that you have in terms of of of that that are placed upon you with possibly getting Co but also you’re you’re more likely to be become more
Depressed which can affect your your physical health uh a lot of people don’t understand that uh long-term depression and anxiety can affect your physical health greatly and by having these additional stresses placed on the body it just puts you at more risk in terms of your uh
Mortality so with the comment about you know affecting physical health is a question of death uh and it’s something that’s inevitable to us all and so you know what if you have someone deaths you know back to back and you you know their ability to manage throughout the pandemic you know
Mr Sams do you have help individuals cope with that experience um understanding how to deal with multiple deaths uh and continuing on with their own work and life yes Dr Swain um grief is is is is is w wow okay there’s a delay I apologize y’all uh so yes grief is a
Reality um with coid um I mean so many people passed away at the Advent of coid at the beginning um it it it it happen so fast so one of the things I would uh speak to you about is say one you want to reach out to someone in the mental
Health field that deals with uh grief uh there’s a a person by the name of PhD by the name of Dr KU also who came up with something called the five stages of grief um we all cycle through those five stages of grief at some points of the
Time um that you know right now off the top of my head I’ll be honest with you I can’t remember them but I know that one of them is guilt uh one of them is acceptance uh you know you know you just go through anger you you actually go
Through all those steps so whenever you lose someone whether it’s during the era of coid or just in regular life you’re going to go through those stages of grief no matter you know where it is so you have to have someone to help you process that grief and put it into the
Right perspective um one of the things I would share to the that person uh just you know just you know as right now on this panel would be keep in mind one of the biggest parts of life is death it’s going to happen it’s inevitable if we all could live for the
Uh the rest of our lives uh we will want to but the reality of it is is death is a part of life so that’s the acceptance of the grief and acceptance of the death is a proper way and a positive way to move through and of course that sounds
Really maybe morbid for me um but one of the things uh I’ve I’ve personally had to deal with death in the last two years myself so you have to process the actual um death and the grief so that you can actually move on and you can be there
For others and be uh and have a wonderful life uh so um that’s one of the things I would say to that to that one there was another good question Dr Swain that was right below that one hopefully you saw it so yeah I’m gonna ask uh Dr Freeman to
Bring it up for us um while we while we move to the next portion of the segment Dr Freeman okay so um the question that he might have been referring to was some people find the process of locating a therapist to be difficult do we have any
Tips for how do you find the right therapist for you okay so this is my wheelhouse so I’m help everybody out every I hope everybody has a pen in the pad down write this down first place where you want to go is psychology today Psychology today you
Can actually drill down to your actual zip code you can then put in that you’re looking for an African-American mental health provider and that will actually provide you African-American mental health provider if you don’t see that you can drill down to Latino or you can
Drill down to someone else of a color if you if you can’t find someone in your area that’s a good way uh there are other options for someone who’s has a lower income and um they’re they’re struggling there something called open path Collective open path Collective
Allows you to pay about $50 or $60 annually um it’s just a one no it’s a one time fee excuse me I’ll take that back it’s a one time fee of the $50 or $60 but it gets you access to the same thing that you would on psychology today
However these people are in sliding scale fee the sliding scale starts as low as $30 a session and goes no higher than I think $80 a session based on your income if you’re you making $200,000 obviously then you’re going to be well over the $80 but if you’re a lower
Income and you’re you’re on a fixed budget of $30,000 annually the $30 comes into play you get mental health conventions like myself who actually will be on open path Collective who will would make ourself available to you at that $30 a session um because we have other people who are paying us higher
We’re able to offset the amount um black um male mental health is another uh space that you can go on on Instagram uh black girls therapy is on Instagram there are numerous ways that you can actually find access to to this and the the I believe and don’t quote me
On this one because I I’m not on the black girl therapy site but I believe they even give vouchers so you go on that thing and they actually pay for your mental health they send the voucher you they you you just send the voucher over to your mental health clinician the
Mental health clinician sends it to that to these people and they pay the mental health counselor um so those are some tips that I would have for everyone right now there’s act there’s ACC everywhere I had someone today because they saw uh that I was going to be on
This panel and he asked me about assistance and I was like do you know someone in DC well actually I don’t know a a black male um clinician in DC however this is what I do have and I provided him with the same tips so these
Are these are good places to start and hopefully this will be beneficial uh to many people that information I would like to I would like to add uh obviously uh if you are going to a uh person of color African-American physician as your family doctor or or
Your primary care person they would more likely know uh people of color are African-American psychiatrists therapists as well uh we we all graduated from med school together we all went to the same meetings there so the your primary care doctor if he’s a person of color will obviously uh be
Able to make that referral to I work in Community Mental Health so for people who have limited means that has been something that I’ve been concerned about for a number of years uh so the Community Middle Health Centers tend to have more people who go there uh that
Are low social economic situations and they are able to see a lot of people who look like themselves there that are actually trying to help our people now I can tell you in terms of finding black psychiatrist especially black male psychiatrist uh I finished my residency in psychiatry in
1994 and when I came back home to Arkansas I was the second black male psychiatrist ever in the state of Arkansas uh and there were only eight black psychiatrists in the state of Arkansas well it’s 20 23 and they are only 11 so that lets you know we’re very
Limited in terms of of but back male and and female psychiatrist uh as a whole as Dr Williams mentioned earlier that they’re very limited anyway so uh but your but I would say your primary care physician would know who is a black uh male or female psychiatrist or a therapist or or or
Whatever you’re seeking in terms of mental healthare outstanding that’s really helpful and and Mr Sam’s provided us with the website we’ll make sure that that’s uh displayed on the screen so that people have access to that um and you know I just want to also highlight we had a number of different questions
That had the contextual theme of worrying um a lot of people are are concerned about that and I think uh Dr Williams and Dr and when you all spoke up uh you had mentioned that there are different kind of therapies or options available for folks that have depression
And anxiety but what about worrying are there some kind of you know trait secrets that you have when you’re engaging patients on how they can cope with worrying or you know even uh to you Mr Sam’s do you have any books or uh recommendations that people can use kind
Of as they engage themselves through uh the the next challenges that they face as it comes to dealing with worry and um this is Dr Williams um the one thing I want to address with that um uh the basic term worry is it um and I recommend folks take care of themselves
Practice self- care strategies you know one you start with getting enough sleep um you um stop looking and playing um video games that are aggressive type of games um that also trigger things in your in your brain eat healthy avoid a a lot of alcohol in tobacco use um again
Limit your screen time and allow some time to relax and recharge and that’s very difficult for some people but it’s very important you need to have some downtime some time just spend with yourself quiet time to relax recharge soak in a bubble bath you know take a
Shower spend some time to yourself to meditate and if prayer of faith whatever your faith is if prayer is a good thing Faith whatever your faith the spirituality is spend some time with that but take some time for some self-care strategies these things do reduce your worry reduce your stress um
Focus on positive thoughts you know what are some positive things that you can focus on um and then again use your spiritual support those those would be the things that I would recommend as it relates to worry Dr Bron that was very well stated and and I
I totally agree one of the things that we’re stressing uh in Capal side we we’re stressing not only mental health but physical health and spiritual health and those three together uh make a strong component for a healthy body and a healthy community so we’re we’re we’re
Stressing uh as part of our what we’re trying to do is in in terms of Healthy Communities is stress mental health physical health and spiritual health so I I agree with Dr Williams totally and we’re gonna wrap think Dr Williams just speaking one more thing I want to
Mention is relate to worry is to make some connections um remove yourself from social isolation begin to make those connections again because it’s very important to have some connections with others uh and do some things um with other folks families friends um whatever and then any final comments Mr Sam
I’m actually typing two books into the chats books into the chats um one is stop overthinking 23 techniques um I don’t want to read the whole title but stop overthinking um it’s a red cover um H CH MC cream um and then the other one
Is uh uh the wor cure uh those are two excellent books that I’ve actually provided to clients personally um they’re they’re there so it is in the chat I I truncated the the stop uh overthinking um because it’s a very long title all right so we have just enjoyed
Such a wonderful evening you know for all those you know we had a great moderator uh Dr swne you have done just an amazing job for us you know um we are just excited you had some last comments you wanted to share yeah thank you uh you know it’s
It’s really a pleasure on behalf of Johnson and Johnson for us to be a part of these type of efforts you know we understand as a large Pharma company and being the largest global Healthcare infrastructure in the world that we have to hold ourselves accountable to move
The needle and provide resources for uh people of color in order to bridge the gap and to really make meaningful change in health disparities and so I’m just gratefully thankful that we have the opportunity to partner with Delta Sigma Theta sorority Incorporated uh and my fraternity cap alpas side Fraternity
Incorporated in such a meaningful way you know we are Trailblazers by our own right each of our organizations and what better way for us to partner with Johnson and Johnson and to address some health challenges that people of color face I think this is the way in which we
Are going to see meaningful change and I’m just really excited not only about the opportunity that we had tonight but the opportunity is moving forward uh in order to bring more resources and enable uh people of color to be better empowered to take charge of the health so thank you for having me
You’re muted Dr Freeman I was about to say Dr Freeman you were talking so wonderfully but you were on mute oh you know we are trying you know during this um streamyard you know we have um we are trying to make sure we do not have any
Backup Echo so I was just talking but I just wanted to say you know thank you to our panelists they have done an amazing job I know they have sparked your interest because the questions once they started coming they were rolling in and you know of course we could not answer
Every question tonight but do know that this only leaves more effort for us to answer future questions um through our individual efforts as well as our Collective efforts so we just want to you know please make sure in the in the chat because they’ll go back our
Panelists will go back and they will look at the chat so please give them an emoji so you let them know that how much you enjoyed them yes I want to see the Emojis right now you know let them right now let us know that you have enjoyed
This webinar um that has been um presented to you by Delta Sigma Theta Sor Incorporated and Kappa alpas side and I’m going to oh I’m glad that um you know uh Antonio has joined me because we want to just give you our um you know
Just the ending pieces for us um I will say um that one of the things that um really I heard over and over again is making sure that we’re identifying U mental health disorders and that we’re also making sure that we have access you know I want to reiterate that teleah
Health in person and even telephonic your insurances will pay for that and I want to encourage um everyone in our audience I heard you asking and I saw the question about insurance and we want to encourage you to contact your insurance the Affordable Care Act was put in place you know it’s
Affectionately called Obamacare was so that all persons who chose to get insurance and could afford it might even be able to access insurance and one of the major pieces of that legislation was that there was a mental health component and we recognize as many of you some of
You asked that some of the questions um was about well you know the the mental health piece is not as robust as the pieces related to our Medical Care well that is where it is important for us to make sure that we Advocate you know that
We let our legislators know what it is we would like to have and what we need but I do want to encourage those who have insurance even if you have state funded Insurance to make sure that you access reach out and make sure you know what it is that your insurance offers
Because some of you have employee assistance program insurance which means that you get some services for free there are those of you who may have um have children who have state funded insurance that means that their in their Mental Health Services are free so we
Want to just make sure and some of you have very small co-pays so don’t find don’t let the cost of you know care run you off until you know exactly what it is that you have what is it that your plan will pay for we want to make sure
That we always give you the best information and for those of you who Wonder well how do we get this information that’s why we’re here for Del uh for Delta Sigma Theta our Live wellth program we are here every second Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. eastern time and we have a
Different topic every single month so we invite you to come join us on the second Wednesday of every month next month we’ll be talking about caregiving so for those of you who have caregivers out there we want to make sure that you come and and join us Antonio what are your
Thoughts and and what’s next up for Kappa in this space Charlotte I must say this has been absolutely amazing um so thank you very much for um allowing us to to come in your space um you ladies have been doing this for for the Long Haul and we
Appreciate the opportunity to be a part um you know I just want to highlight some of the things that I heard today um there was um several isms I like to call it that were dropped um we talked about um Dr Bren talked about mental physical and spiritual health um you know that’s
How you make it as a whole individual uh practice self-care strategies um that was mentioned uh emotional hesitation um uncovering disparities uh socioeconomic disruption and then you know cognitive distortion and then one thing that we all are still dealing with is how coid changed the way we do things um you know
H as a result of Co I’m I’ve I’ve been 100% remote um they they decided that you know they don’t need us back in the office and So Co kind of kind of showed uh companies that things can be done in a different way so there are some goods
And some bads that have come from it but I encourage um like I mentioned our brothers um I encourage our sisters everyone just to make sure that you’re being strong if you haven’t if you’re not okay it’s okay reach out to your loved ones and just make sure that
You’re okay but one of the things that we are um actively doing right now is that we’re making sure that we bring down the numbers of disparities in healthcare we’re encouraging our brothers to make sure that they’re going to see their doctors we’re encouraging our brothers to make sure that they’re
Working out um we have a big platform with regards to physical fitness um our grand poar Mark brother Jimmy McMichaels he ran track at at Indiana University where we were founded and so he is huge on physical fitness and so as a result we are embodying that within our body of
Brothers so again Charlotte this has been phenomenal um thank you thank you the ladies of Delta Sigma Theta for inviting us in your space this has been amazing we are excited that you were able to join us in this space and who knows maybe we’ll be back together again
You know we want to thank our technology team uh we have the the dynamic duo from both of our organizations who have been working um behind the scenes and they have been doing a great job we want to thank our staff Liaisons who have worked along with us to ensure that this would
Come across seamlessly and we believe that the crimson and cream team have done just that we thank you for joining us tonight again come back tune in to our Pages go and see our web you know view our websites so that you can be sure that on our Facebook on our YouTube
Wherever you might see our logos and our organizations we thank you and we invite you to come in and live well have a great night thank you so much for joining us on tonight’s webinar we invite you to join us in future Ser future webinar sessions as discussed by both of the respective
Organizations a huge thank you to the men of Kappa Alpha s Fraternity Incorporated and the ladies of Delta Sigma Theta sorority Incorporated we hope that you have had some exciting information given and you will take it back and live well thank you very very much and have a great evening
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