Radical Healing: A Viable Response to Racial and Ethnic Inequities in Behavioral Health

Maxine Henry, MSW, MBA
Co-Director
National Hispanic and Latino ATTC


Ethnic and racial inequality has been present in our landscape for generations, yet the COVID 19 pandemic seems to have put a spotlight on the disparities felt by people of color and other minority groups. In a time where the entire world is experiencing overwhelming stress brought on by a virus that has changed our everyday lives, the National Hispanic and Latino ATTC decided to bring together powerful voices to spark conversation and activate positive change in our communities across the nation.

September is a busy month for many in the behavioral health field, as we celebrate National Recovery and Suicide Prevention Month our calendars and social media fill up with important events and inspiring messages of hope, healing and transformation. In many ways it has been a bright spot in the pandemic.

For Latinx community members September also kicks off Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15-October 15), providing us with additional opportunities to commemorate and celebrate our diverse communities. The 2020 theme for Hispanic Heritage Month is “Hispanics: Be Proud of Your Past and Embrace the Future”. In honor of this year’s theme our team decided to host a 4-part Virtual Learning Series titled “The Intersection of Acculturation, Assimilation, and Substance Use Disorder in Latinx Communities: Risk and Resiliency Factors”.

Different from a webinar format, this virtual learning community consists of a returning panel of four subject matter experts who are well respected in the areas of focus: Hector Adames, Psy.D.; Lorraine Moya Salas, PhD; Anna Nelson, LCSW; and Mr. Javier Alegre. The experts spend a short time providing an insight into the research and theories covered in our sub-topics and then have open dialogue with the same small audience of professionals, paraprofessionals, peers, students and leaders from across the U.S. This event is focused on providing a safe space for key stakeholders to gather to discuss the topics of race, disparities and strengths in the Latinx communities they come from and/or serve in the behavioral health space. The goal was to secure engagement in order for the participants to return to their communities and begin to manifest positive change.

Throughout all of our four sub-topics one theme that is consistent is radical healing as a key component to not only coping with racial and ethnic inequities and long-standing collective trauma that is the exacerbated by the pandemic, but to thrive despite the disparities that our communities have felt and, in some instances, contributed to. On its surface radical healing might sound far-fetched or hard to obtain, but once you take a closer look it is a natural strength of many communities. It is based in fundamental tenants often found in the deeply rooted Latinx culture. “Advancing beyond individual-level approaches to coping with racial trauma, we call for a new multisystemic psychological framework of radical healing for People of Color and Indigenous individuals. Radical healing involves critical consciousness, radical hope, strength and resistance, cultural authenticity, self-knowledge and collectivism. (French, Lewis, Mosley, Adames, Chavez-Dueñas, Chen, & Neville, 2019).”

Under this premise we can look back on what our ancestors have taught us, that in times of need we employ familismo, our larger family unit consisting of relatives, friends and community. To heal, recover and thrive from trauma and/or substance use disorders we look to traditional healing, connection and collectivism to take care of ourselves and others. When we face inequities, we rely on our resilience taught to us by our ancestors and family, stand in resistance to racism, and work together to push our families into the future.

Our goal with this event is not only to unpack issues of historical trauma, racism and intersectionality but also to highlight the strength, resiliency and power of our diverse communities. Furthermore, we aspire to use this dialogue as the catalyst for community and systemic change to heal and push forward into a brighter, healthier, more equitable landscape.

REFERENCE:

French, B. H., Lewis, J. A., Mosley, D. V., Adames, H. Y., Chavez-Dueñas, N. Y., Chen, G. A.,

& Neville, H. A. (2020). Toward a Psychological Framework of Radical Healing in Communities of Color. The Counseling Psychologist, 48(1), 14-46. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000019843506.

Connecting Community and Faith in a Troubled World: The Southeast ATTC’s Faith Leadership Academy

By Pamela Woll, MA, CPS 

and Dawn Tyus, LPC, MAC, NCC

Southeast ATTC

Six months ago, when the world started grinding to a halt, it looked like travel and gathering restrictions might get in the way of the Southeast Addiction Technology Transfer Center’s highly interactive “Let’s Have the Conversation” Faith Leadership Academy, due to start its Immersion Training on April 27. Far to the contrary, the Academy has adapted well to Zoom, and the effects of COVID-19 have many times underscored the urgent need for and importance of the Academy, its lessons, and the leaders it inspires.

If we had any doubts about the complexity of the global pandemic of substance use disorders (SUD), the global pandemic of COVID-19 has wiped out those doubts. The social isolation and unemployment that coronavirus prevention measures created have proved powerful complicating factors for SUD.

• Substance use has escalated, often to “self-medicate” loneliness, stress, and distress.
• Access to treatment and recovery support has been reduced, or at best complicated.
• Overdoses have skyrocketed, due to increases in use and decreases in the human contact that sometimes leads to life-saving measures.

Faith Leaders
The under-resourced SUD field has begun to recognize that engaged, knowledgeable faith leaders and faith communities can be excellent collaborators, “force multipliers,” and bridges between recovery and community life. For many individuals and families, welcome and support from faith leaders, congregations, and faith-based programs can be a catalyst for recovery, a source of referral/resources, and—for some—a primary source of ongoing recovery support.

But even before COVID-19, it wasn’t as simple as opening the doors and carrying a message of faith, hope, and redemption. The stigma, misconceptions, judgmentalism, and shame attached to SUDs:

• keep many individuals and families away from faith communities,
• prompt many people to hide or deny their afflictions long after they’ve joined faith communities, and
• sometimes provoke subtle and not-so-subtle expressions of disapproval that can drive people away from faith communities—sometimes away from faith itself.

Well-prepared faith leaders can seed recovery-friendly cultures within their organizations/congregations, but that’s not simple either. Religious education offers little information or training about SUD, stigma, intervention, referral, or recovery support. Beyond that, it seldom prepares leaders to develop the larger vision, mission, and calling that would help them reach out to surrounding communities and collaborate in transformative efforts to find and help the many individuals and families in desperate need.


The Faith Leadership Academy
Southeast ATTC Director Dawn Tyus and Developer/Facilitator Le’Angela Ingram, MS built the Academy to address just these challenges. Components include:

• “360 Assessments” synthesizing feedback from superiors, peers, staff, and congregants;
• one-to-one coaching with the facilitator;
• a collaborative immersion training for this cohort of 10 faith leaders;
• webinars with field leaders presenting best practices and emerging trends, followed by discussion sessions within the cohort;
• extensive reading (e.g., Robert Greenleaf’s Servant Leadership, James Collins’s and Jerry Porrass’s “Building Your Company’s Vision,” Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline, John Kotter’s “Leading Change,” and Derron Payne’s The Art of the Pivot);
• collaborative results-based projects;
• a booster session; and
• graduation.

With the inspiration of their individual and collective values, visions, and missions—and the energy and synergy of their collaboration—participants are finishing their projects, including:

• a regional gathering of faith leaders, a committee to discuss options for linkage to treatment/recovery support, and a multidisciplinary forum on the SUD needs of men in the criminal justice system;
• training programs (e.g., understanding/identification of SUD, stigma reduction, trauma-informed services, faith leader peer support, forging connections with community resources, starting an SUD ministry, Mental Health First Aid, Wellness Recovery Action Planning, and Resilient Congregations Framework for Ministry) for other faith leaders;
• a project to establish wraparound services in an impoverished community, a mentoring/support relationship with an under-resourced congregation to establish a Celebrate Recovery program, and a movement to prevent arrests and recidivism; and
• two video projects, one using personal recovery and faith community experience to educate faith leaders/communities on becoming more welcoming and connecting; and one on empathy, with an accompanying journal/discussion guide for faith communities.

Facilitator Ingram has fond memories of many moments from the Academy, but her favorites are the moments when participants came to her saying things like, “Le’Angela, this is deep!” “This is not lightweight stuff!” and “I have to take more time to be reflective!”