COLUMBUS, Ohio — One organization started a series of conversations addressing and understanding the impact of police violence on Black mental health, particularly for Black women.
Black women were able to share their experiences with police in a safe space.
Jewel Woods, founder of Male Behavioral Health, said he started this series because he believes there are some gaps between understanding how police violence is affecting marginalized groups and institutional betrayal trauma, also known as IBT.
“It is a gendered-based way of paying specialized attention to some of the uniqueness regarding the intersections of race and gender, particularly for Black women,” he said.
Woods said he got into the mental health field because he feels men should be held accountable if their behavior leads to harm and anguish. This series of community conversations will occur in different cities across the state with the goal of bringing awareness to Black mental health and bringing positive change in marginalized communities.
“The two main areas that we’re really interested in trying to understand and address how police violence impacts Black mental health is around one, the issue of Black suicidality,” Woods said. “Research has been showing this association clinically as something that I have seen and actually was the main reason why I wanted to actually host these events. And then that second area, which is Black parenting.”
Woods also hopes that these open and honest conversations will help break generational trauma within the Black community.
“I think these conversations and the data that we’re going to gather and the recommendations that we’re going to have the potential of really allowing parents to be able to do something more with this thing that we’ve passed on generation after generation after generation,” said Woods.