The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation presented a host of well-rounded conversations concerning the welfare and empowerment of Black Americans across the country. Amid a full roster of sessions, this year’s conference included a bevy of discussions highlighting prevalent health issues and their unique effects within Black communities.
Congressional representatives and health leaders from various parts of the country filled a diverse schedule of presentations covering agendas toward the prevention of maternal mortality among Black American women, detection, and intervention of poor kidney health, advancing breast cancer equity, Black women’s reproductive rights, clinical research partnerships, the dire urgency to ending gun violence, and much more.
Perhaps some of the most profound conversations rallied around the mental health issues of today’s youth, in addition to the drug abuse crisis ravaging many majority Black regions in the country. These two issues are especially prevalent in Washington, D.C., as the city faces rising rates of juvenile suicide, along with skyrocketing crime. Likewise, the opioid crisis lies undergirded in much of the danger and destruction throughout the metropolitan area.
Ambrose Lane Jr., chair of D.C.’s Health Alliance Network, hosted a panel featuring local drug recovery advocates to discuss trauma and addiction, the information behind treatment, and the ultimate need for healing among Black men and fathers.
“When the Chief Medical Officer’s report comes out following current trends, there will be more opioid deaths than COVID deaths in the District of Columbia since March of 2020 when COVID began,” Lane shared. “Ninety-nine percent of [opioid] deaths this year in D.C. involved fentanyl. West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and others all have public health emergencies, but not the District of Columbia. At the end of the day, all of these numbers represent people whose lives, families, and communities are forever impacted. This includes Black fathers, men, and boys.”
Panelist Larry Bing from the Leadership Council for Healthy Communities shared the groundwork behind prevention navigation for people battling addiction. Bing works to connect residents with wrap-around services to provide structure including housing, food, clothing, insurance, and more for displaced men and women throughout the city.
The lack of infrastructure available to delicately approach the mental health concerns behind drug addiction echoes the complaints of the local organizations and residents who urge the District to provide sufficient resources to address mental health emergencies.
Bing resists the notion of providing those in recovery with more generic substances to encourage sobriety, understanding that addiction needs to be resolved from a holistic approach, as it often intersects with various tiers of mental health issues.
“When we ride throughout the city, there are so many men and women who are suffering not just from substance abuse issues, but mental health as well. They might have started one way and not realized that later on they were suffering with what they found to be bipolar or any other [condition] under that umbrella. If they don’t get the case management that they need to deal with this, they will continue to suffer,” said Bing.
Similar to the need for support services to guide drug-addicted residents, there also exists a frightening urgency to address the mental health crisis among our youth. Congressman Troy A. Carter (D-LA) sat with local substance abuse and mental health leaders to discuss the daunting suicide epidemic and the accelerated rates of suicide among Black children.
“Even beyond the suicide deaths, suicide attempts are increasing particularly between ages 13 to 17 since 2009. We are seeing suicide rates that are double their white counterparts for Black youth between the ages of 5 to 12. That statistic never gets easier for me to say. It never does,” shared Brandon J. Johnson, MHS, MCHES, Branch Chief of the Suicide Prevention Branch of SAMHSA during the “Our Kids are NOT Ok, and Neither Are We,” panel session.
Johnson explained that the research reveals that trauma is a significant factor behind the growing rates, as Black youth are disproportionately experiencing traumatic life and social events that are influencing morbid mental health and behavior. SAMHSA and mental health practitioners are petitioning for the community to provide safe systems and spaces of support for the youth to thrive.
“The systems aren’t wrapping around support for them, so looking at that, we see these incidents increasing. As we’ve been engaging states and talking to young people, they don’t feel safe in a lot of systems. They feel like people won’t keep [private] some of the things they are talking about and it is harder to relate to professionals,” Johnson said.
“The data is clear that we have to address the mental health side, but there are some social systemic issues that we need to get together to get real support around our kids.”