This weekend, health professionals and members of the public are gathering in St. Petersburg to talk about mental wellness in the Black community. It's part of a three-day summit called Healing While Black.
Black counselors, state and county health officials, and other experts trying to improve health equity in the community are leading the three-day summit. Guest speakers include Florida Deputy Secretary for Health Shamarial Roberson and Kent Butler, president of the American Counseling Association and chief equity, inclusion and diversity officer at the University of Central Florida.
It also involves community events such as a block party in the historic African American neighborhood The Deuces, a basketball tournament and "Textured Conversations" in hair salons and barbershops.
These offer safe spaces for attendees to talk about one of the most critical topics: mental wellness, according to organizer LaDonna Butler. She’s executive director of the Well For Life in St. Petersburg, which provides counseling services to Black, Indigenous and other people of color and trains clinicians in trauma-informed care.
Butler said the coronavirus pandemic and police killings of Black people have taken their toll on many people of color this past year, and she expects it will be a long road to recovery.
“And as we come out of separation and isolation, it is a beautiful thing for us to be able to celebrate in community with each other on such a topic about our total community well-being,” she said.
Butler views this weekend as a "family reunion" of sorts that will lead to deeper dives into mental health issues throughout the year.
“You see this sets up the conditions for us to talk about suicide, domestic violence, substance use, rebounding from COVID in a meaningful way,” she said.
Some events in the schedule are specifically designated for Black and brown attendees but others are open to people of all races.
Butler was also involved in running another recent event in Pinellas County that discussed mental wellness in underserved communities.
The town hall, hosted last week in Clearwater's North Greenwood neighborhood, addressed topics like the role of faith communities in mental health and how vaccine hesitancy is connected to mental wellness.
Many area organizations collaborated on the effort, including the University of South Florida, the Florida Department of Health in Pinellas County, and local churches, among others.
“Faith-based organizations are part of the public health safety net of our country and it’s important to acknowledge that,” said organizer Joe Bohn with USF’s College of Public Health.
Among the speakers were pastors Doug Walker with Tyer Temple United Methodist Church in East Tampa and James Williams with Mt. Olive AME Church in Clearwater. They’re working to remove stigmas surrounding mental health and substance use disorders in the church and train faith leaders how to guide members of their congregations to counseling and addiction resources.
A panel on vaccine hesitancy included health department representatives Andrea Peaton and Dr. Nosakhare Idehen. They talked about how trauma from racist experiences in health care can cause anxiety about the COVID-19 vaccines and distrust in the medical community for some Black and brown residents.
The health department and other community groups who participated in the town hall are continuing outreach efforts in the coming months to encourage more people of color in the region to get vaccinated.
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