Author: herlifenotyours

Strong Black women have historically been a symbol of stability and a pillar of perseverance in the Black community. From Beyonce to Zendaya, they have been put on pedestals to represent an ideal state of being. However, the results of this position have had far more dire consequences than expected. The Strong Black Woman (SBW) schema and its negative consequences have been propositioned as a force in sustaining poor mental health conditions in Black women. The stigma associated with seeking help, as well as mistrust of the mental health profession, has created an environment that now requires an innovative intervention to appeal to the needs of Black women. This intervention must not only aid in diminishing the negative connotations surrounding seeking help, but it must also make resources and education available to those who use it.

The Strong Black Woman schema is based on strength, emotional restraint, and the ability to give care and comfort to those within the community, no matter the cost to mental health. Rooted in slavery, the concept stemmed from the idea that Black women are physically and emotionally more resilient than their white counterparts. At that time, it was used for survival (Ligon, 2021, page 1). Since then, it has been ingrained in the community as a necessity.

While research outlines many benefits to adhering to this blueprint, there are also many repercussions. The most pertinent downfalls to this schema are that “for Black women, mental illness and intention to seek mental health care services are intrinsically linked to and influenced by stigma and barriers” (Ligon, 2021, page 5). According to the same research, Black people are twenty percent more likely to “experience mental health problems…[but] it is estimated that 8.6% of Blacks make use of…services” (2021, page 5). These statistics depict that Black women do not seek the mental health help they need.

The purpose of an intervention is to diminish the depressive effects of the SBW schema through a bottom-up approach in the form of a digital application and community workshops. There have already been attempts to address Black women seeking help through podcasts such as Therapy for Black Girls. However, the podcast’s content targets women, not necessarily girls and young adults. This intervention aims to connect Black girls to therapists who match user-inputted criteria. It will educate, connect and provide general tools for dealing with depression because of the SBW schema. And it will also allow Black girls and young women a chance to participate in therapy sessions when they feel they need more help than the general application resources will provide.

According to Ligon, “self-stigma of Seeking Help was moderately negatively related to mental health-seeking for general emotional distress and suicidal ideation, such that greater self-stigma endorsement was related to lower intentions to seek help for general mental health distress and suicidal ideation” (2021, page 60). This aligns with the Health Belief Model outlined in Module five of the lectures. The model states that help-seeking behaviour depends on a person’s perception of the seriousness of their illness and the perceived seriousness of barriers. Using a digital intervention will maintain privacy and ensure accessibility. Recent research has begun delving into the effectiveness of digital interventions on mood disorders, including depressive symptoms.

The intervention is an educational workshop coupled with a digital application that delivers real-time therapy. The application will provide tools and resources for dealing with symptoms of depression resulting from SBW schema. It targets Black girls in the US between 14 (entering high school) and 22 (finishing college and ideally about to enter the workforce). It will be conducted in Texas because it has the highest concentration of Black people in the US. It involves static advertising of the application in the form of posters, once-per-semester workshops with only Black girls in a school, and work with teachers to help identify the traits of the SBW schema and how to approach someone experiencing it. The educational workshop will focus on introducing Black girls to safe spaces and resources in the community, as well as a walk-through of the application. The program’s first iteration will address all the targeted populations (that is, once per semester = 2 sessions per year; 9 age groups; the total number of sessions is 18; the number of participants would be 15 per age group). Then, for four years, we would track participants’ progress to see how it impacts the first years and if it helps deliver coping strategies effectively. Each three-hour workshop session will be catered to the stage of education/life the group is at. For example, at age 14 (year 1 of high school), they will focus on seeing other women surrounding them, seeing signs in themselves, learning techniques when they have recognized them, and providing access to therapists for one–on-one sessions. We will also have a speaker present at the sessions and do break-out groups for the participants to engage with each other since this is an easier way to express themselves rather than in a large group.

There are a few barriers and enablers that may affect the feasibility of the intervention. One barrier is the community’s perception of mental health and accessing mental health resources. Another barrier is a paucity of research that targets digital applications’ success in improving mental health and limited research that points to black women-specific mental health interventions.

Finances must also be considered. It would require volunteers or workers to help facilitate the sessions. However, it is only one workshop per semester, so the financial strain would be small in this area. Additionally, the cost to create and maintain the app and the therapists who would be involved is a barrier. These costs could be covered by potential funding from mental health grants such as ones provided through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. It could also be funded partially through educational grants since it takes place initially on school grounds, involves teachers and aids students. Once funding is secured, it will also be used to train those presenting at workshops and teachers to approach and address girls they believe are in need.

One enabler is the abundance of information surrounding another historically oppressed group, the Indigenous community, including several mental health interventions and what makes them successfully implemented in different countries. The Smart Platform Policy is an example where Indigenous youths input real-life data while participating in community and self-building activities (Katapally, 2020). This app enables an intersectoral approach to health, as discussed in module four, to facilitate the empowerment of Indigenous youth (Katapally, 2020). Another enabler is up-ticking community interest. More Black women are becoming aware of the schema and its adverse effects and are working to dispel them. However, this usually occurs at college age. Because of the number of stakeholders involved and the mental barrier associated with help-seeking, feasibility is precarious. Nevertheless, this intervention has about a 70% chance of reaching its target audience and achieving its goals.

The intended outcomes are improved mental health of Black girls of school age through giving access to resources in school that they could use outside of school and possibly teach to others around them. An unintended outcome is that students who do not identify as Black or female may feel passed over or ignored. An entire population of students goes underserved. A potential solution to barriers is to emphasize and maintain users’ privacy and data privacy. A possible solution to unintended outcomes would be to make the app available for free to all students so they can have access to the tools.

Subscribing to the Strong Black Woman schema, and maintaining its ideas in the Black community, has recently been brought to light. To see better health outcomes for society, we must focus on uprooting deeply engrained thought patterns in Black Women.

References

Carpenter, J. (2022). GLPH 271 – Online: Global and Population Health. [Online Modules].

Katapally, T. R. (2020). Smart Indigenous Youth: The Smart Platform Policy Solutions for Systems Integration to Address Indigenous Youth Mental Health. JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting, 3(2), DOI: 10.2196/21155

Ligon, J. D. (2021). Being a Strong Black Woman and Willing to Seek Help [Master’s Thesis, University of Michigan-Dearborn]. ProQuest Database Service.