Upcoming Events
Black History Month Lounge
2/20/2025
Step into the African American Behavioral Health Center of Excellence’s Virtual "Black History Month Lounge," a dynamic space dedicated to exploring how language shapes our healing from racial trauma.
Join us for an engaging and thought-provoking conversation, led by Dr. Connesia Handford, PsyD, an expert in racial trauma and its profound impact on identity development.
In our special segment, "The Thing You Never Thought to Ask About Racial Trauma," we’ll delve into the hidden layers of our own experiences, encouraging deep introspection about how these traumas shape our lives and influence the work we do with Black communities.
Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0kf-2vpz4jGNDn1LbySXJNuo7GAD4bde_A
Contact Name: Pilar Jackson
Contact Email:
pmjackson@msm.eduFor more information: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0kf-2vpz4jGNDn1LbySXJNuo7GAD4bde_A
Collaborative Care: Strengthening Provider Relationships with Autistic and Neurodivergent Population
5/7/2025
Webinar Description: This workshop is designed to empower providers and autistic and neurodivergent individuals to collaborate effectively and advocate for their needs through culturally responsive and collaborative approaches. Participants will explore the unique challenges faced by individuals navigating healthcare systems, learn to address barriers to care and develop strategies for effective collaboration. Providers and caregivers will leave with tools to create supportive environments that respect cultural identities and individual needs.
Webinar Objectives:
- Understand the unique and varying support needs of autistic and neurodivergent individuals within diverse cultural contexts.
- Identify common barriers to culturally responsive and supportive care and methods to address them collaboratively.
- Develop practical strategies for providers and caregivers to work together in advocating for respectful and effective support from healthcare and other providers
Presenter: Breanna Kelly-Higgs
Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcuc-ygqDMrHdKtrcHB_np97gNCitJcEQvQ
Contact Name: Pilar Jackson
Contact Email:
pmjackson@msm.eduFor more information: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcuc-ygqDMrHdKtrcHB_np97gNCitJcEQvQ
Show Past Events
Ongoing Events
Improving African American Retention in Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Treatment
This 2-hour self-paced course is for mental health practitioners—a term that we use to include substance use disorder practitioners—and primary care physicians who seek to provide culturally responsive care. Its focus is on helping the workforce understand the presence and impact of implicit racial bias in health care and mental health treatment.
Register here: https://www.healtheknowledge.org/course/index.php?categoryid=156
Diversity Equity Inclusion: Another Look
Dr. Lawrence Bryant hosts, 'Diversity, Equity, Inclusion: Another Look' where he examines how the behavioral health field should reexamine diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. This webinar is 1 hour long.
Register here: https://www.healtheknowledge.org/course/index.php?categoryid=156
Professional Advocacy Through a Health Equity Lens
This webinar is 1 hour long. This webinar will review the history of mental health policies and their roots in inequality and racial discrimination. Modern-day approaches to equity in mental health must confront this past and support reforms to address barriers for racialized and minoritized communities.
Presented by Steven Starks, MD
Register here: https://www.healtheknowledge.org/course/index.php?categoryid=156
Racial Inequity and Discrimination in Mental Health Promoting Equity In Crisis Services
This webinar is 1 hour long. During this webinar, learners we be informed on the impact of structural racism and systemic inequalities in mental health care. Research findings will be used to showcase the connection between structural racism, mental illness, and criminal legal systems. To mitigate this challenge, policy interventions to combat structural racism will be shared.
Learning Objectives:
- Define structural racism, discrimination, and prejudice
- Discuss how structural racism and discrimination impact individuals with mental illness involved in the criminal legal system
- Implement policy interventions to address structural racism in the mental health and criminal legal systems
Presented by Matthew L. Edwards, MD
Register here: https://www.healtheknowledge.org/course/index.php?categoryid=156
Social (In)justice and Black Children's Mental Health
This webinar is 1 hour long. Social (In)justice shapes development while driving both mental illness and mental health inequities in youth. Just as children and adolescents' personal and family history is needed in order to understand and then address mental health symptoms, those who serve black youth also must learn (or, more accurately, relearn) our society’s history and structural injustices to effectively transform its systems. Substantial progress toward mental health equity will not come overnight or without struggle, but in the absence of knowledge about social injustice, it certainly will not come at all.
Presented by Sarah Y. Vinson, MD, F.A.P.A.
Register here: https://www.healtheknowledge.org/course/index.php?categoryid=156
Who Gets Left Out Racial Inequities in Mental Health Diagnosis and Treatment
This webinar is 1 hour long. There are mental health diagnoses where evidence suggest there is little or no difference in incidence, yet Black people and other people of color are not being diagnosed or treated for these mental health conditions. Assessment, diagnosis, and treatment is complicated by clinician bias, racism, discrimination. Clinicians must recognize their own biases and the history of unequal treatment to provide an accurate diagnostic evaluation to improve treatment of Black people and other people of color.
Learning Objectives:
- Understand the historical context and structural racism in mental health diagnosis and treatment
- Identify examples of bias and racism in common mental health diagnosis
- Discuss strategies to reduce bias and racism in mental health diagnosis and treatment
Presented by Michelle Durham, MD, MPH & Christine Crawford, MD, MPH
Register here: https://www.healtheknowledge.org/course/index.php?categoryid=156