05 Jun UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATIONS: OUR COMMITMENT
At Mental Health America of Kentucky, we provide mental health education, information, and resources to anyone who asks for it. We aim to do so in a spirit of cultural humility, deferring to individuals with lived experience to tell us what they need and what changes they’d like to see.
People don’t typically reach out for mental health information or education when they’re comfortable.
We have uncomfortable and difficult conversations all the time. We will continue to have them.
We hear you, Black Lives Matter.
We hear you, Louisville.
We hear you.
All of you.
We see your tears, your anguish, your stress, your anxiety.
We share information about your health inequities and we lift it up in statewide discussions. We continue to promote healing of trauma – including racial trauma – through training and information sessions.
The time for listening is still now, but we hear you asking for additional action.
We can’t fix racism alone. Our board is more diverse than ever, but we’re in need of more of your voices at our table. We’re rededicating ourselves to recruit board members whose voices are strong in their communities – not just geographic communities – but cultural, racial, and ethnic communities.
We rededicate ourselves to addressing disparities in mental health treatment in Kentucky.
There are far too few Black mental health professionals in the Commonwealth and across the United States. We rededicate ourselves to promoting the stories of those professionals who do practice here and will continue asking mental health professional organizations to promote their work to Black Kentuckians. We will continue to lift up the voices of Black persons with lived experience.
There is no health without mental health.
There is no mental health in a commonwealth that promotes or tolerates white supremacy and racial injustice.
Mental health providers and peers are available at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 988 and via text (“MHA”) to 741741.
Contact us if you would like to be at our table. Email mhaky@mhaky.org or call/text 859-684-7778.
