Mental health issues affect people of all ethnicities, but not everyone gets the help they need. In fact, research has shown that Black adults are less likely to seek out and receive mental health care compared to white adults. Daniel Jacobson López, a trauma researcher at the Boston University School of Social Work, aims to change that.
López wants to end mental health stigma, particularly for Black and Latino men, and create a world where men of color in the United States have better access to treatment and support. To make this vision a reality, López, an SSW assistant professor, has launched a project to train mental health professionals on how best to work with and engage men of color who are receiving counseling or therapy. The project, called MenTalK, was founded by López and Charles Daniels, founder and CEO of Fathers’ UpLift, a Boston-based organization dedicated to helping Black fathers.
MenTalK is a research lab focused on improving mental health outcomes for Black and Latino men. It received funding through the BU Clinical & Translational Science Institute (CTSI)—which helps BU researchers partner with community organizations—to gather data for an initial study about Black men’s mental health needs. Together, López and Daniels hope to publish more studies, articles, and clinician guides.
López says the initial data for this study will be collected by conducting listening sessions and focus groups with Black men, who will be asked questions about past care, how clinicians can work to fully understand and address issues of bias and discrimination, and how to reduce the stigma that exists when talking about men of color receiving mental health care. The study will also involve BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) clinicians working toward becoming licensed social workers or therapists. They will be asked questions about what skill sets, education, and knowledge they think are needed to work with men of color, and whether or not their master’s programs are equipping them with those.
The Brink spoke with López about the project and why studying Black men’s mental health is especially important right now.
Q&A
With Daniel Jacobson López
The Brink: How has partnering with Fathers’ UpLift helped bring this project to life?
Dr. Daniels is really a leader in his field. His organization, Fathers’ UpLift, is one of the first organizations nationwide to have a space specifically for Black fathers. He has an amazing team there, which specializes in working with Black men, as well as clinicians who are in training. He’s able to bring his level of expertise since he has been working with Black fathers for 10 to 15 years now. His team is also already established within the Boston area. They have community partnerships, they know men who are receiving services at Fathers’ UpLift already and are in individual therapy sessions and group therapy sessions, and they also have a ton of networking throughout the country with other organizations.
The Brink: How did you decide to start this project together?
We originally met in Yale University’s Research Education Institute for Diverse Scholars program and discovered we had a shared interest of improving mental health. We’re also both clinicians by trade, and have worked a lot with Black and Latino men. We spoke a couple years ago about how to collaborate together. Then this opportunity came along, and we figured this was an excellent way of working together and getting some starting funds to launch the project.
The Brink: Why is this study important right now?
I think obviously it’s important right now, especially with many ongoing societal-level issues. We’re seeing, unfortunately, a rise of hate crimes and a rise of white supremacist groups. But there has always been a lack of attention toward Black and brown men in clinical research. For example, did you know Black men are five to seven times more likely to be misdiagnosed with schizophrenia compared to white men? There’s clinician bias that goes into the more stigmatizing diagnoses for Black men in particular. There also is a lack of clinicians of color who are working with communities of color. I think it’s so important that we make sure that we’re represented in the social work field and in the clinician space, as well as making sure that we have trained clinicians to work with Black and brown men who are enduring racism, discrimination, and anti-Black racism.
As clinicians, we often work with people who are struggling with depression, anxiety, with those sort of mental health outcomes. But it’s not as common to have clinicians, particularly clinicians of color, who can work with communities of color who are suffering due to racism and discrimination. Being able to understand what it’s like to go through daily experiences of racism, discrimination, and police brutality is a little bit different than just working with someone who may be suffering from depression that’s not due to their race and not due to their skin color.
The Brink: What lasting impacts do you hope this project will have on Black men’s mental health?
What we would like to have is several things. One is to have a guidebook based on the data we’re collecting. We’re going to gain data to understand what clinicians need to best engage [Black and brown men who are receiving therapy], and what men need to receive support. With that gathered information, the goal is to create a best practice guidebook for clinicians and to use that guidebook to train future clinicians who wish to work with men of color. Secondly, our goal is to also work with Boston University and other schools of social work—and perhaps psychology and other related fields—to talk about syllabus development in classrooms, and maybe publish another book or guidebook that, in the future, could be used for college courses. We also want to conduct training for social workers and other clinicians, such as those who need to get their Continuing Education Units—but that would be a long-term goal.
The Brink: What motivates you to study and raise awareness about this issue?
I think there is a general misconception that men of color aren’t in need of receiving services and don’t need therapy. There’s a lot of stigma particularly around Black men not having emotions or not being harmed. But there’s a lot of harm that happens to Black and brown men on a daily basis through police violence, through discrimination, and through racism. I feel that because of racism and racist ideology, Black men are seen as perpetrators, and never as survivors. My main research area is studying Black and Latino men who have been sexually assaulted, and they always seem to be left out of the conversations of being survivors or being subjected to harm. It often either goes unnoticed or these men are dismissed when they go to seek services. There is such a large portion of men of color who are being harmed and who are survivors of different forms of violence, but who are not getting the services they need. I think that’s one of the main misconceptions in understanding the harm that’s being done to Black and brown men.
The Brink: Do you think the Trump administration’s policies will have any effect on both your research and similar research in the future?
If we were to try to seek federal funding, I think it would be very difficult to get and there would be worry whether they would want to fund a study looking into violence against Black men. I think we will now have to look for nonprofits and that sort of organizational funding. But federal funding is probably going to be out, unfortunately.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.