Minority Mental Health Awareness Month

by Abigail Knowles Wolfe (BPRW)

Late May 2008 bore witness to the House of Representatives passing H.Con. Resolution #134, a resolution supporting the designation of the month of July as Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month in honor of late mental health activist and noted African-American author Bebe Moore Campbell. Moore Campbell was pivotal in the fight for improving mental health resources and support systems for minorities across the country. Minority groups are not as likely to receive proper mental health care according to the Surgeon General due to lack of resources and cultural stigma.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness better known as NAMI, states through its Multicultural Action Center, that there is a lack of cultural competency within the mental health field, especially as related to treating patients of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. NAMI advocates for equal access to mental health treatment for diverse communities across the United States while working to decrease the stigmas that tend to accompany mental illness.

NAMI statistics, such as those published in 2004 in the “African American Community Mental Health Fact Sheet,” articulate the impact of mental illness on the African American community. For example, children in foster care and the child welfare system are reportedly more likely to develop mental illness and African-American children comprise 45% of the American foster care population. By making the issues visible to the public eye, NAMI and awareness building campaigns such as the Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month work to take the stigma away from mental illness and focus it more on providing support where it is most needed.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?tab=main&bill=hc110-134