Saturday, Oct. 26, marked the highly anticipated return of the second-ever Black Mental Health and Wellness Conference at Parkland College, and it is safe to say that its goals to “educate, motivate, and collaborate” were met with the utmost dignity and care.
The event was once again hosted in partnership with the Champaign County Community Coalition and spearheaded by Donna Taylor-Harold, who acts as the chairwoman for the event.
Following the same formula as the previous year, the conference was set to host two seminars per hour, all of which encouraged attendees from practicing psychiatrists to interested community members to share their thoughts. The eight-hour conference was well attended by various public health and community-building organizations to support the conference.
This year’s keynote speaker was Anjanette Young, whose home was wrongfully raided by police in 2019. She was quick to note that while this moment is a deeply ingrained source of trauma, she was far from defenseless in how she handled it.
“The facts are what happened to me. The truth is how I responded,” Young said.
Following the situation, she founded the non-profit I AM HER Foundation, which provides therapy and mental health resources to women and girls who do not have resources. As a holder of a master’s degree in clinical social work, she has been active not just in in-depth and personal crisis management and enrichment conferences such as this, but also in discussions for police reform in Chicago and beyond.
Mirroring the message of her attire, Young encouraged attendees to not rely solely on faith for their mental health needs. She noted that although it is helpful, therapists and medications were often the help that faith is leading them toward. Although faith and medicine are sometimes seen as at odds in the black community, she assured the audience that the two ideas are actually interlinked.
Chairwoman Taylor-Harold followed this up by dismissing the audience into breakout sessions. We chose four of the eight sessions – and their lessons – to share with you in this article.
Session 1 – Realizing and Recognizing Racial Trauma with Karen Simms
“What does it cost me to be here? Who am I betraying? Who are my allies?”
These words were delivered by Karen Simms, founding director of the Trauma and Resilience Initiative and recipient of the Freedom Fighter Award from the Champaign Country branch of the NAACP.
Her session focused on mostly unconscious thoughts and response patterns from individuals affected by racial trauma – which she says everyone is affected by in some form.
She says that the initiative for fighting racism has changed, stating that in the past, the explanation for racism was ignorance and lack of cohesion.
“[We were told if we] get an education, act right, dress right, talk right, behave right, [move into] the middle class… racism would end.” However, even after “acting right,” the racism continues. Moving forward, she suggests an approach that centers around investigating why one moves through the world as one does.
“Until we change minds and hearts, racism will continue,” Simms said. She expounded on this idea by showing that it is a complex cluster of problems, both recognized and unrecognized. From harmed ancestors to acts of violence in our lifetimes, unraveling the knots of trauma is something she encouraged others to continue working on.
As an extension of this, she noted several health issues including high blood pressure issues within the black community. As many conditions are exacerbated by stress, she links the nature of inheriting stress and hardship as much as genetics, noting that she and her siblings all have autoimmune disorders and have faced violence in the past.
This all culminated with the audience sharing their own stories of witnessing racialized violence and inherited trauma. Simms shared the mishandling of her grandmother’s condition, who was not given the chance for dialysis due to the hospital not considering that her family could afford it despite having more than enough resources.
Other audience members shared deep-seated traumatic events. One included a marine telling the story of him and fellow service members stumbling upon Klansmen burning crosses in North Carolina after taking a back road in 1988. Another detailed witnessing structured racism, and pointing out how policemen in his area had been involved in foul play and under-investigated black deaths.
Simms made a point to end on a positive note, handing a mission to the audience: “Let’s all commit to reducing our stress.”
Session 2 – Parenting Under Pressure: The Fear of “Screwing Up” in Gen X and Millenial Parents
As presenter Imani Harrison puts it, “Nobody comes out of childhood unscathed,” and considering that fact, it is natural for parents to want to offer their children the best life possible. However, navigating parenthood and trying to create a foolproof plan to be the perfect parent can often be a strenuous experience, especially when faced with the intersectionality of being a black millennial and Gen X parent.
As a licensed clinical professional counselor, Harrison found this topic extremely relevant to address at this year’s conference, as the “topic of parenting” is highly discussed not only within her workplace but also in her personal life as a mother.
“Everybody is feeling like they are going to screw up, or that they are screwing up, or that they did something that [has caused] irreparable damage, and wondering how they can come back from this.”
Harrison explains that these feelings of anxiousness and insecurity often derive from factors outside of themselves, such as the systematic risks of “putting black kids out there and not knowing how they are being received, or not knowing if they are going to be treated differently in their classrooms.” Ultimately, exasperating the fears that black parents need to fit their children into the molds of respectability politics for them to be treated fairly.
Additionally, millennial and Gen X parents are bound to face a parenting challenge no other generation has faced on this scale: social media, specifically in its information overload.
“There are 80 billion books, presentations and TED talks, and you have everybody telling you what to do and how to do it.” Apart from the general confusion of parents not knowing who to listen to or trust, the greater thief of comparison lies beneath, with parents often only sharing the glamorous and glossed-over parts of parenting online.
If any word could perfectly describe it, it would be pressure. Pressure to have it all together, ensuring your kids are involved in every possible opportunity to provide academic and social success while also holding the self-expectation to heal every single piece of trauma and break every generational chain.
It is said that pressure makes diamonds, but if that pressure results in unintentional adverse effects on one’s mental health for parents and children alike, is it still worth it?
Turning away from this level of pressure, Harrison wants to remind parents that “self-compassion” is an absolute necessity, saying, “It is not our mistakes that define us; it is what we do after we make them.” Elaborating that modeling this ideal for your kids is a much healthier alternative to the ideals of perfectionism and performance.
Parenting is never a one-size-fits-all formula and, in the grand scheme of things, involves much nuance when figuring out the best way to parent. Alongside self-compassion, something that any parent can take away from Harrison’s workshop is the importance of creating a balance between protecting your children and giving them the freedom to make mistakes.
Session 3 – The Journey of Grief with Dr. Joycelyn Landrum-Brown
As unfortunate as it is, grief and loss are absolute realities of life and are not always linear processes. Retired professor Dr. Joycelyn Landrum-Brown, understands this well and led the workshop discussion describing her personal experiences of grief in the traditional sense and later enlarging the discussion to how grief can apply to a structural sense.
From the death of a loved one to the death of innocence, after seeing hatred in the world at the hands of things like racism and sexism, it stands true that grief is a unique process that can be obtained from any sort of loss.
As for something so complex, these responses to loss can be “emotional, physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, cultural, spiritual and philosophical.” Involving an array of complex feelings that are not always the easiest to manage, especially if the loss is unexpected.
While there is no formulaic way to fix every situation, there are ways to help make grief cycles easier to process and endure. Throughout the presentation, Landrum-Brown references sources that can assist this process, such as religion, spirituality, music, smell, taste, touch, breathing exercises, meditation, finding sanctuary and so much more. Nonetheless, it is essential to note that not every one of these sources may help someone the way they help someone else and that you have to find what works for you.
Specifically in terms of managing structural grief, Landrum-Brown shares that when seeking out a therapist for grief in this area, it was important for her to find a therapist who “understands the impact of racism, and what it means to be a black woman living in a racist society.”
As a trained clinical psychologist, Landrum-Brown understands the benefits of utilizing therapy; however shares, “I don’t want to be re-traumatized by talking to somebody who does not get my experience or understands that.” Furthermore, showcasing the importance of advocating for one’s needs, especially in a clinical setting.
Fundamentally, grief does not discriminate. So, when we are able to find the right outlets that allow us to get through such complex processes, that is when we can begin to find healing.
Session 4 – Pursuing Wellness with Joe Omo-Osagie
“Mental health is health,” began Joe Omo-Osagie. The former Parkland counselor and psychology professor encouraged attendees to take mental health as seriously as physical health. “Nourish your body not only with the food you eat but with the company you keep” Omo-Osagie continued.
Although he has stepped away from positions as the vice president and president of The Champaign County Mental Health Board, he remains active in the community by appearing in workshops, facilitating conflict resolution and teaching yoga classes.
Omo-Osagie gently led attendees through a repeatable three-minute mindfulness exercise that listeners could try at home. After closing one’s eyes and choosing a favorite food, the audience was encouraged to imagine the smell, sound, taste, texture and consistency of the food as they chewed it. Connecting with the sensations of mundane actions was said to encourage a less chaotic headspace.
Many other lessons and exercises were passed on to attendees, including getting up and walking every 30 minutes when sitting down, asking deeper questions when meeting with health professionals and changing one’s inner monologue.
“How do you talk to yourself? Catch yourself before you go into the negative,” he said. He then credited LL Cool J while asking “If you can’t keep yourself in check, then who will?”
Omo-Osagie then got audience members to be more active in the session, bringing a variety of drums – djembes and a shekere – and releasing whatever rhythm they had bottled up inside of them. While many laughs were shared amongst the audience and players, there were also a few tears.
At the end of the session, we spoke with Alinafe Nyasulu, an international student at the University of Illinois. She expressed feelings of sadness and loneliness after moving away from Malawi this August. “I don’t think, or didn’t realize, that I was having that emotion.”
She found herself moved to tears after joining Omo-Osagie in the rhythmic activity. “Most of the time you don’t get to release yourself. It’s very difficult for an African to break down.”
She finished the interview by giving her personal story regarding the event, saying “The whole function has been a safe space to me. It’s created, [for] me, a platform. You can… speak without being judged.”
Concluding Thoughts
The second iteration of the Black Mental Health and Wellness Conference offered many valuable lessons and tools for attendees – and readers – to take with them. While the conference has been effective in attracting repeat visits from many professionals, community members and supportive organizations, it continues to seek constant improvement through verbal audience feedback and surveys given out at the end of each session.
Looking forward, the annual Black Mental Health and Wellness Conference has cemented itself as an informative summit of professionals and citizens alike bridging the divide between mental health, faith and the multiple meanings of “wellness.”
No matter the background or ethnicity, we are all affected by racial dynamics and institutions of racism. While breaking the problem down will be a long and hard process, we hope readers take a page out of Simms’ book, moving forward with a personal commitment to “reducing our stress.”
- All photos taken by Tayon Swift ↩︎
