Upon consideration of upcoming changes in the mental health community as a result of the incoming Presidential administration, Dr. Peggy Swarbrick, Director of Rutgers University Scarlet Well, places an emphasis on taking care of oneself.’ “Focus on your wellness, self-care,” Swarbrick says. “We can’t give into negativity; we need to counteract it with positivity.”
What are following additional recommendations from eight experienced mental health professionals across various sectors of the mental health community: Two peer advocates, two research and academia representatives, fand our nonprofit representatives from diverse areas of the community:
Jessica Lowell Mason, co-facilitator of Memoirs to (Re) Imagine Mental Health Careadmits that she’s been witnessing an increasing number of disheartened people in her community. Mason’s community includes those participating in the workshop she co-facilitates with Dr. Janelle Gagnon, and the writers and members of MWIA. a feminist mental health literacy organization she co-founded, which is based in western New York. She says the writing is an important part of the radical work,
Yolo Akili Robinson, founder and executive director of BEAM (Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective), has witnessed more hostility aimed toward their community, thereby causing more distress “The long-term economic and care disparities that Black communities face will only be further damaged by a political environment hostile to racial justice work, LGBTQ rights and women’s rights to control their bodies,” she says.
Ann Smullen Thieling, Chief Operating Officer of CSPNJ, a peer-led behavioral health agency, concurs. “From my perspective, it’s clear that the incoming administration is outright not shy about being blatantly sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic,” she says. “T contributes to a loss of safety and gives ‘everyday folks’ a license to do the same.” “There’s been an increase in domestic violence, which I think is going to continue,” she adds. “This implies the message that it’s okay to do this behavior; that this behavior is acceptable. Where do you turn for protection if the highest office in the land is someone who has been convicted of sexual assault and outright brags about sexual assault?” Thieling asks. In an effort to combat this, Thieling adds, “We come from the perspective of a fellow traveler. We respond with people of lived experience at every level of management including myself.”
Elena Kravitz, a long-time mental health advocate who formerly served as the Policy Director for NYAPRS (New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services) and currently serves in the mental health protection and advocacy field adds, “The struggle is harder, and the hurdles are higher and by 2026 there will be criminalization in mental health. People in mental health are going to be frontline escapegoats. Look at us now. We’re dispensable, forgotten despots. Eventually we get in, but we’re on the outside of the hierarchy,” Kravitz adds.
Lauren Carson, Founder and Executive Director of Black Girls Smile (BGS)a nonprofit which provides gender-responsive and culturally affirming mental wellness education resources and support to Black women and girls ages 13 to 26, anticipates a regression in the priority of mental health services. Carson pointed to the Biden-Harris Administration’s Mental Health Parity Act which increased resources but still not necessarily for Black people and Black girls. “But there was a focus there on increasing providers particularly providers in rural communities and thinking about how we support young people, particularly around mental health,” she says. As a result, the organization received quite a bit of funding in 2020, which led to the hiring of an increasing number of Black mental health researchers. She went on to say that a decrease in funding for Black female researchers who would primarily focus on Black girls’ mental health would prove highly detrimental. “It’s a hamster wheel. There are these things we know to be true in our communities and organizations, but if we don’t have the data to prove that, then someone’s not going to want to fund that,” she says.
The nonprofits who depend on statistics are not the only ones concerned about the prospect of lower research funding. The researchers, themselves, also have concerns.
“There’s a lot of anxiety right now about whether funding for NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health) might be cut next year, and whether there will be changes in priorities within NIMH,” says Dr. Steve Silverstein, the George L. Engel Professor of Psychiatry and Associate Chair of Research at the University of Rochester Medical Center. “It’s too soon to know what’s going to happen, which is causing the anxiety among researchers and academic institutions,” he says. “There are still many research questions to be studied dealing with issues like opioid and substance use, and the rise in childhood and adolescent mental health issues (the suicide rate has risen 30% in the past 25 years),” he continues.
But how will this affect the average person?
“Medication development will continue, mostly because it’s funded by for-profit pharmaceutical companies, but there is doubt about research for non-med treatment,” Silverstein concedes. “There needs to be more done to develop and increase the availability of community-based services such as affordable safe housing, supported employment, social skills training, cognitive remediation, treatments to reduce negative symptoms, etc.” Further, “It’s been known for over 40 years now that the level of recovery from serious mental illness is related to the availability of appropriate services (eg, psychotherapy, skills training and other forms of psychiatric rehabilitation, supported employment and education, etc.) in the community.”
While nonprofit organizations provide some of those services, they have looming concerns of their own.
“Nonprofits are anxious about shrinking access to donors, as a result of donor fatigue and a landscape of fewer large donors giving the bulk of donations, which makes it hard for small nonprofits to compete,” says Ping Ho, the Founder and Director of Arts & Healing Initiative (AHI), a nonprofit organization that transforms lives through the innate power of the arts, guided by mental health practice to foster healing, connection and resilience for all. She is also concerned about a bill which is aimed at curbing ‘terrorist activities’ within nonprofits, which are purely subjective. This bill would allow nonprofits to be dissolved without transparency or due process.
Hope on the Horizon
In order to survive, Carson recommends that nonprofits maintain more money in reserve and contingency funds for mutual aid outside of grant requirements. “We can’t educate Black girls around mental health if they don’t have a roof over their head or if they don’t have nutrition. That’s just not possible,” Carson contends. She also envisions a space where the Black community and Black nonprofit organizations can work together to meet the community’s needs.
“We are preparing for an increased engagement of our services and mapping out strategies that can help folks feel more supported, loved and cared for,” Robinson adds. To do so, Robinson’s organization hosts regular open healing spaces and healing circles to teach coping skills, strategies and tools to support the community’s mental health and the health of their families. “It’s important for organizations like BEAM which support mental health to think about how to support Black, Latino and Indigenous, Trans and Queer folk because we’ve seen increasing attacks on these communities,” Robinson adds.
Swarbrick agrees that nonprofit organizations should not get distracted by negativity. “In these times we will have to be more creative and innovative. There will be more opportunities to think outside the box and focus on what’s in our control, remembering to consider what we can change, and having the wisdom to know the difference,” she continues. “Use this approach during this uncertainty and supporting one another in terms of wellness, self-care and continuing to do what we can to do good in the world for people around us.”
Fortunately, Ping Ho has already has reason to celebrate. After training thousands of adults to deliver social emotional arts and find healing, connection, and resilience in creative ways by using the power of the arts guided by mental health practices, they’ve discovered that youth can also be trained. Two successful pilots have thus far been launched in schools located in Long Beach and Santa Monica, California, where seventh grade students have been trained to mentor fifth grade students in the delivery of social-emotional skill building, making it possible for a third pilot. “By recruiting older youth to mentor other youth, we can bring out the best in both groups and sustainably begin to heal communities,” she says.
CSPNJ is also looking towards the need for more alternatives to developing mainstream crisis services, The agency has recently been awarded, through NJ response to 988 crisis line implementation, responsibility for four counties of MCORTs (Mobile Crisis Outreach Response Team) that respond to a 988 call that warrants a visit in the community. “The whole purpose is to have zero police interaction in the intervention,” Thieling says.
Further, Mason says that she has seen examples of love and help and solidarity exchanges in the workshops she leads and the communities she’s part of, and even more so in the past couple of weeks than in the past few years. “But I think the love and the care and the solidarity that were there, that are there now, will be there in 2025 and will be going forward,” she says. “What I anticipate is that it will be there even more so,” she adds.
RESOURCES.
AHI offers a free Hope Series Healing Online for People Everywhere and trainings and courses in mental health provided by the partnership of Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health (DMH) and University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA)
Carson recommends Black Girls Smile for resources, hinting that there is also to be an addition coming soon.
Swarbrick also recommends resources from Rutgers University ScarletWell: Wellness Inventory, Journey to Wellness Guide, Creating a Healthy Life Guide, Self-Care Resource and Wellness Resources.
BEAM holds monthly healing circles led by trained wellness and mental health practitioners that offer a free space for community members to get care, support and coping/healing strategies. BEAM’s Wellness Tools Page has free resources for download covering how to engage care, Tips for supporting folks living with Schizophrenia and more. BEAM’s Get Help Now Page includes comprehensive resources such as hotlines, warm lines and crisis management contacts across the United States.
Mason of MWIA and Memoirs to (Re) Imagine Mental Health Care Workshop extends a free resource invitation to the memoir workshop. If you’re interested, write to Jessica L. Mason and Janelle Gagnon, introduce yourself by telling them why you’re interested in joining and if you have experiences with the mental health system. No writing experience necessary. Email: [email protected] and [email protected].
About the Author: Jacques Armstrong is a fellow with The Loreen Arbus Accessibility is Fundamental Program, a fellowship created with Women’s eNews to train women with disabilities as professional journalists so that they can write, research and report on the most crucial issues impacting the disabilities community.
