Helping African-American children with mental health issues
- February 16, 2022
- The REACH Institute
- Anti-racism, Child mental health Culturally responsive,
Last week I saw two children, both African American, who were having suicidal thoughts. In neither case did the child or the parents come in asking for mental health support.
One, a 13-year-old girl I’ll call Simone, wrote on her PHQ-9 depression screener that she had attempted suicide. In our interview, she revealed that she had had sex with a man she met online and that she had been cutting herself. Yet the reason she and her parents came in was an ADHD medication check!
Pediatric primary care providers (PCPs) need to realize that African-American families may not seek help for mental health issues. The reasons for the lack of disclosure are rooted in the stigma around mental health in the African-American community. The stigma, in turn, is rooted in the trauma associated with being Black in America.
Categories
- ADHD
- Anti-racism
- Anxiety
- Assessment & screening
- Autism
- Child mental health
- Coding
- Cognitive behavioral therapy
- College transition
- Culturally responsive
- Depression
- Eating disorders
- Foster care
- Grief
- High-risk children & youth
- LGBTQIA
- Medication
- Parents
- Patient communication
- Pediatric primary care
- School refusal
- Sleep disorders
- Suicide
- Trauma
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