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When Kevin Deadner tells his doctors about the racial trauma he’s experienced as a black man, they often don’t believe him.
His visits to therapists, he recalled, were “burdened with the painstaking work of persuading me of the importance of my experience as a black man in the world.” “Imagine you’re in therapy… and the therapist is just staring at you in disbelief.”
That changed when he started seeing a black therapist who understood what he was going through, Dedner says in his book, “The Joy of Separation.”
The meeting inspired him to found Hurdle Health, a Washington, D.C.-based mental health telehealth service that takes on experiences like racism to provide better care for clients. Dedner hired that therapist as the provider’s first chief clinical officer.
“Our first clinical lead … was asking me questions that would confirm the story I was telling,” he said. “Our therapists are trained in a method that recognizes that they don’t have the bank of experience to fully connect with the client in front of them.”
Hurdle’s latest initiative is taking that approach in Brooklyn Center — Minnesota’s second most racially diverse city and the only Minnesota city with a black mayor and city manager — in partnership with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota. Of the 30,000 people who call Brooklyn Center home, 31% are black and 17% are Asian. Census Bureau.
Brooklyn Center police officer Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old black man, was shot and killed in April 2021. The city has also been hit hard by Covid, with some communities of color experiencing the highest rates of cases and deaths.
But the lack of diversity and training among therapists cannot solve this trauma properly.
Hurdle therapists recognize that clients may have different experiences and ask questions that make them listen, Dedner said.
Blue Cross is paying for therapy sessions and Hurdle is providing therapists.
Deirdre Yarbrough, director of special services at Brooklyn Center Community Schools, said Brooklyn Center residents have been facing mental health challenges, a program that works with community groups to provide students with access to mental and medical health care and other services.
“Before Covid, before George Floyd’s murder, before Daunte Wright’s murder, mental health concerns were all over our society,” Yarbrough said.
Seth Ryan, director of community engagement at Brooklyn Center Community Schools, said a protest was held at the Brooklyn Center Police Department, which is a block from the high school. Many students had to leave their apartments because of the tear gas.
In the year ending June 30, about a quarter of the school district’s students visited a mental health provider, Ryan said. 44 of these students were new customers last year.
Yarbrough thinks the partnership will help existing mental health professionals develop the highest demand for services.
“Minnesota, in the metro, is especially short on mental health professionals,” Yabro said.
While teletherapy is useful for residents who cannot drive regularly, it can still be difficult for those with limited Wi-Fi or Internet access.
Even though it’s been a year since Wright’s shooting and subsequent protests, Brooklyn Center residents are still angry, said Latoya Turk, interim manager of Brooklyn Center’s Office of Community Prevention and Health and Safety.
“Images continue to play over and over in our minds, not only Daunte’s murder, but it’s a constant re-enactment of so many of our black and brown bodies across the country,” Turk said.
Therapists at Hurdle go through a variety of scenarios, role plays and cultural ethics training where they learn about aspects of their clients’ cultures, said Hurdle therapist Cedric Rashaw.
“You can’t have a one-size-fits-all approach to counseling because everyone’s experience, everyone’s perspective on life is different,” Rashaw said. “Usually when I meet someone from a different culture, I want to learn from them. Before they tell me why they’re coming to therapy, I say, ‘OK, tell me who you are, tell me your story.’ So I can learn, too.”
The partnership will include therapists from diverse backgrounds that reflect the demographics of Brooklyn Center, Dedner said.
Community organizers’ requests for mental health care services helped convince Blue Cross to get involved, said Bukata Hayes, Blue Cross vice president of racial and health equity.
The program is a first for Blue Cross, and no other city has been in the running, Hayes said.
He hopes the size of Brooklyn Center will help Blue Cross learn more about providing mental health care and create similar programs in the future.
The program started recently and Blue Cross plans to continue for five years. Brooklyn Center residents can register via app or registration. Online portal. Participants provide an address to verify residency.
This story is brought to you. Sahan Journal, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to covering Minnesota’s immigrants and communities of color. Sign up for it Free newspaper To receive stories in your inbox.
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