Resources:
Concentrate Media
Sarah Rigg’s Feature Article: “It’s okay to get help”: New program offers mental health support for Black men and boys in Ypsi and Ann Arbor
Packard Health
Healing Brothers United (HBU)
Washtenaw County Mental Health Millage
Transcription:
Lee Van Roth: You’re listening to 89.1 WEMU. I’m Lee Van Roth, and this is On the Ground Ypsi. Today, we’re talking about mental health community care and what it looks like when support is designed with people and not just for them. At Packard Health in Ypsilanti, a new initiative is taking shape that centers Black men and boys, challenges stigma around mental health and creates space for connection, conversation, and healing. The program is called “Healing Brothers United,” or HBU, and it’s focused on increasing access to mental health support while meeting people where they are. Joining me to talk more about the program, its goals, and its impact on the community is Santinio Jones, Behavioral Health Program Manager at Packard Health. Hi, Santinio! Thank you so much for being here!
Santinio Jones: Hello, Lee! A pleasure to meet you! I’m honored to be here! Thank you!
Doug Coombe
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Concentrate Media
Lee Van Roth: So, to start us off, for folks who might not be aware, can you talk a little bit about how Healing Brothers United kind of came to be over at Packard Health and the kinds of gaps in service that you were looking to fill with this?
Santinio Jones: Yes, yes. So, the program actually pre-dates me. It started back in 2021 with Packard Health and the non-profit New Joy, run by Dr. Daphne Watkins, came on board and started a collaboration because she has a hundred young Black men program. And that was the goal was to try to meet and reach and achieve some of those statistics within Washtenaw County. So, as a result, they partnered, collaborated and wrote a grant to get some funding to start to stand up and find out some information about the program. So, with that, initial funding came from the Michigan Health Endowment Fund, which allowed me to go out into the community and collaborate with other organizations that were doing similar work in the community. So actually, I started working with My Brother’s Keeper and going around to other organizations within Ypsilanti, Michigan. And I created an advisory board of five men. And as a result of that work, we decided that they would go through and determine and help Packard Health find out what would be beneficial in the community, rather than making some assumptions and putting out information and material. So, a list was provided, and out of the list, it wasn’t brochures, it wasn’t information that reflected and looked like young Black men, it was ambassadors. They felt that boots on the ground would make the biggest impact in the community and having a presence. And as a result of that, that would actually bring men in. And then, we could develop materials and information to support the program.
Lee Van Roth: And, as you described too, the development of the material and things that came that come together to create the HBU program, these came out of listening sessions and conversations with community members as well. And it could be you or the advisory board, what are you hearing as far as the issues that Black men and Black boys in our community are really struggling with? What are things that you’re hoping to address really directly?
Santinio Jones: Address openly? Just get the conversation going. As you could imagine, as you mentioned in your opening, there’s a lot of stigma surrounded with Black men talking about mental health. Generationally and traditionally, it’s just something we don’t talk about. It’s suffer in silence. And so now, what we’re doing is just trying to get men in the room to start to have these conversations, create a safe space to open up and get information to determine what’s needed. Some of the needs that we’ve discovered is having a Black male therapist that they can talk to, to feel open with, to build that trust in the community. So, that’s precisely what we’re aiming to do: get out and spread some awareness, just talk about why we’re here, not judge, just openly receive men as they are. Because as you can imagine, there’s a spectrum of any human being, particularly Black men, and I’ll throw this in that as well, and it’s just getting us in a place to have conversations to hopefully unpack and create impact.
Doug Coombe
/
Concentrate Media
Lee Van Roth: I know some of the stigma around mental health, and maybe it’s a universal thing, as well as something that appears in different ways with different communities. But there’s sometimes an idea about mental health care where it’s like, “Oh, well, you go in to get it when you are in crisis mode, you are at the end of your rope, and this the last resort.” Is there a push in those conversations–in those open conversations–about receiving care to explain that this is care that you can get at any time. You don’t have to be in this state of crisis if you are just feeling a little bit off. There is someone to talk to. Is that part of those conversations?
Santinio Jones: Absolutely, yes! We want to get it before it becomes at a crisis state, right, so having the conversations, building that trust, building a relationship to say, “Hey, what’s going on? What are you feeling?” just even to get the names out. Like, “I feel sad.” “Okay, let’s sit there for a minute. Can you explain to me what that means to you?” Or describe. “Are you angry? What are your feelings?” So, before it gets to a critical state, we want to be there to have that intervention, hopefully based on that trust that we’ve built.
Lee Van Roth: There’s, in addition to that mindset, something that came up in the conversations that Sarah Rigg had with you and with the other folks involved with this program was how these traditional therapy spaces, as we understand them, can sometimes feel intimidating. They can feel unwelcoming, especially when you are talking with professionals who don’t share some facet of your lived experience, like you’d mentioned having a Black male therapist on staff as well to sort of bridge that gap. How is the rest of the therapy space kind of being discussed in these conversations? What are ways that you are hoping to get across to folks? Like, this is what the space should look like and this is how you as the patient, as the client, so to speak, can help to curate that, so you get the best experience.
Santinio Jones: That’s a brilliant question! And that’s what we’re doing. We’re curating, we’re looking, we are going out in the community and we’re doing it as a one-on-one, and we are capturing data to then share with other organizations how to do it. So, we don’t want to put people in a bubble or in a space, so we’re doing it individually. So, that way, we can see the individual as we walk through this process. But that’s where our collaborations with the Community Mental Health organization come into play. I’m starting to have enrolls and discussions with them, so we can begin to share these things and be advocates in the community to grow and make this awareness more knowledgeable through other organizations as we discover what we find with dealing with young Black men and boys.
Doug Coombe
/
Concentrate Media
Lee Van Roth: This is On the Ground Ypsi on 89.1 WEMU. I’m talking with Santinio Jones about Healing Brothers United at Packard Health. So, let’s go back to these ambassadors that you had mentioned as well, the folks that you’re working directly with to sort out what resources are needed and then how to eventually then disseminate that to other orgs in the area. What has the impact sort of looked like from them or the conversations that you have with them, the conversations they’re having with community members. What are folks saying about the program? What does the impact look like so far, either on the folks over at Packard or the folks that are receiving this help?
Santinio Jones: Well, in-house, we’ve actually been in-house because the way that we’ve been structured, we’ve be doing a lot of strategic planning with the men, so I have seven men plus myself. And so now, we’re getting out in the community, so it’s funny you mention that. Packard Health, I present it there to the board, they’re excited about the work. I have two social workers, masters of social work men on the team, I have an educator on the team, I’ve a medical student in his fourth year doing his residency on the team, and two other men working at University of Michigan. So, what they’re bringing is a wealth of information. I’m honored to have a team like this. And so, what we’ve been doing to get prepared to spread awareness is we’ve walked through persona exercises, so we can look at all the spectrums of young Black men and be prepared to give the information that’s required. So early on, internally, it’s been well received and welcomed by the Board of Packard Health as well as the staff. And now, we’re getting to the point we can actually start interfacing with the community to share our goals and now spread the awareness.
Lee Van Roth: And you had mentioned some of this. Some of the funding making this possible came from the Mental Health Millage here in Washtenaw County. And obviously the program is set and paid up, so to speak, to run throughout the year. What does the long-term look like right now? Are there other funding sources that you’re already looking at? Are there ways that the community can get involved in a deeper way, if it’s like a volunteer situation or donations, things like that. How does this program continue to have that positive impact?
Santinio Jones: That’s another wonderful question! Actually, with the work, we’re still with New Joy collaborating with them and actually we have Emergence Collective as our evaluation team. And we’re talking about sustainability and how we can sustain this program. And Dr. Ray Ryan has always mentioned from day one that he did not want this program to just be based on grants. He wanted it to be sustainable throughout through grants. But, yeah, so what we’re doing now is to really think about the needs, and we haven’t set up a donor structure. That’s a brilliant idea. I think we’re going to start planning for things like that. But, yeah, just looking at the community and seeing how we can be sustainable based on the results and touch points that we’re going to have now within the community. So, that way, funders can see that we are actually making an impact in getting out in the community and getting some of this anecdotal, qualitative, quantitative evidence to support our work. So, again, I have to harken back to our vision statement. I mean, we strive to create a world where all Black men and boys thrive with optimal mental health, feel valued, heard, supported, and have a space to embrace their individuality and share their unique experiences.
Lee Van Roth: Well, Santinio, thank you so much for joining me here today and for sharing about how HBU is creating this space for open conversations that it’s so important all the time, but it’s important to have those spaces available. So, thank you so much for this work!
Santinio Jones: You’re welcome! My pleasure! It’s been an honor!
Lee Van Roth: For more on today’s conversation and a link to the full article, visit our website at WEMU.org. On the Ground Ypsi is brought to you in partnership with Concentrate Media. I’m Lee Van Roth, and this is your community NPR station, 89.1 WEMU, Ypsilanti.
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