For Migrants, A Hopeful Journey Out of Darkness

StrongMinds Zambia began offering teletherapy, in part due to COVID-19 related restrictions, but also to address the many new stressors that came with the pandemic. Counselors hold group calls with five people twice a week for five weeks. Clients are not charged for treatment or the calling costs. Some of the 1,500 women and about 100 men treated via teletherapy express the benefit of anonymity that speaking over the phone brings in a therapy setting. Without fear of being identified, clients feel more comfortable talking freely, especially given existing stigmas surrounding mental health issues.

Making personal connections supports mental health and wellbeing. The San Francisco-based nonprofit, Sidewalk Talk, trains volunteers to go out and engage on a personal level with individuals in underserved communities. The volunteers simply listen and provide empathy, a valuable resource for those who might not have access to mental health care.

Sometimes just having someone to talk to can help those who are suffering from depression. The Friendship Bench program in NYC borrows an idea from Harare, Zimbabwe, where healthcare workers—affectionately called Grannies—sit and consult with patients on benches outside of healthcare clinics. The Grannies help people discuss their issues and have had a measurably positive impact on those they’ve reached. In New York, the Friendship Benches connect individuals to peer mentors willing to listen across the city.

In order to provide a means for people who have experienced trauma to find support and begin to heal, Reverend Liz Walker founded a counseling group for her Roxbury neighbors. Rev. Walker’s post-traumatic healing group differs from others in that the group is run by the participants’ peers, the group is located in Roxbury, and participation is free.

Volunteers all over Canada are working hard to implement the Canadian government's mission to resettle 12,000 Yazidi refugees. A large part of the plan focuses on mental health support for this heavily-traumatized population and relies on trained interpreters to be able to communicate with them sensitively and appropriately so they open up to the idea of psychotherapy. The program has proven successful in that Canada now houses 50 Yazidi families, many of which go on to help other Yazidis settle in.

Healing Hurt People (HHP), the program that helped save his life, now employs men like Jermaine McCorey - men who used to be a part of a violent life on the streets of Philadelphia - to reach out to boys and young men in the emergency department and help get them through empathy and personalized support. HHP's goal is to help young people recognize the role trauma has played in shaping their lives, to respect and honor their experience and to help them avoid fueling the cycle of violence.

Healing trauma has never been an easy process but programs like Healing Hurt People help to promote recovery in traumatized, angry young men. This program, in partnership with local medical services, aims to provide therapy in place of violence, which would only cause more trauma down the road. Those who stick with the program have found great success in overcoming their pasts.

Child First is a program in Connecticut, where staff members deliver home-based parent guidance and child-parent psychotherapy to help prevent the detrimental physical and mental effects of toxic stress on children. The engagement is guided by an evidence-based methodology called Child-Parent Psychotherapy, which is grounded in collaborative problem solving.

As the education community increasingly raises up social-emotional curricula as a solution to rising anxiety levels in young children, it can be hard for schools to know which of the countless programs and curricula are actually effective. One district in Virginia might have found a promising model — Bristol's schools have made several simple changes to give students the space to talk openly about their emotions and are seeing clear academic improvements.

In rural counties, it's not always easy to seek mental health treatment. To address this, several different resources have been built over the years in Richmond County, Ohio from call or text hotlines to educational campaigns specifically targeting school-aged children.