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UC hosts 'Mental Health Mondays'

The Chronicle - 9/14/2020

Sep. 14--STORRS -- No doubt about it, 2020 has been a difficult year for nearly all college students, including University of Connecticut students.

African American students, however, have had a double shot of crises to manage and cope with.

While they have been experiencing isolation during the pandemic, they have also watched racism come to the forefront of national conversation.

It's a situation exacerbated by high- profile police shootings/ killings against Black people and a badly divisive political climate.

A new UConn initiative, " Mental Health Mondays," is

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â??Mental Health Mondaysâ?? to help Black students at UConn

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designed to help African American students by offering coping mechanisms.

"This initiative is, hopefully, just the beginning of another strategy to let Black students know that they're not alone and there are mental health professionals that are committed to their psychological and overall well being," said Jamilah George, a UConn graduate student therapist who started the initiative.

The initiative involves black graduate student therapists at the Psychological Services Clinic and staff at the H. Fred Simons African American Cultural Center on campus.

It began last July and continues into the fall semester.

George said she felt July, which is Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, was the perfect month to start the initiative.

She said July also comes soon after " Juneteenth," which is on June 19 and celebrates the ending of slavery in the United States.

George said there is a lot of stigma surrounding mental health issues in the African American community.

" The Mental Health Monday is hopefully the beginning of really highlighting this partnership," she said, referring to the partnership between the psychological services clinic and the African American Cultural Center.

Every Monday, students who are signed up for the listserv, an electronic mailing list, receive information for improved mental health via email.

The Aug. 24 email, for example, suggested finding a quiet and comfortable space for meditation and provided a link to a virtual, 18- minute meditation exercise.

A number for the psychological services clinic at UConn is listed in the email.

George said while the initiative is geared toward Black students, anyone can be added to the listserv and, in fact, " we would encourage that, to learn about other experiences that may not be relevant to them."

She said a lot of her white friends and colleagues are " shocked that this is a reality for people of color."

Incidents like the killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by white Minneapolis officers on Memorial Day have brought racism to the forefront of national conversation.

That conversation was furthered by last month's shooting of a Black man in the back by a white officer in Kenosha, Wis.

" Watching someone get killed is traumatic and watching someone who looks like you is even more traumatic," George said.

UConn students recently joined together to protest about what they feel are inadequate mental health services.

They also participated in protests about racial incidents on campus.

Hundreds of students participated in a " March Against Racism" protest following an Oct. 11, 2019, incident at Charter Oak Apartments.

UConn students Jarred Karal and Ryan Mucaj were accused of calling black students in the apartments the "n-word" and were arrested by UConn police.

George said the university was successful with the hire of new chief diversity officer Franklin Tuitt, who began his position in July.

" I think that's a step in the right direction, obviously, but there's so much more work that needs to be done," she said. " The university needs to be intentional about creating an environment in which black students and students in general can feel valued and feel safe and until that happens, the work remains."

Tuitt, UConn President Thomas Katsouleas and Provost/Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Carl Lejuez outlined some of the work UConn is doing on this issue in a July 23 letter to the community.

" At UConn, we have committed ourselves to matching our words with concrete, real- world actions that touch on every unit and facet of the university," they wrote.

On Nov. 9, for example, UConn officials will participate in a professional development retreat with Robin DiAngelo, the anti- racism scholar who wrote " White Fragility."

A new course about anti- racism is starting this semester and the UConn Humanities Institute was awarded a $750,000Mellon Foundation grant to expand the Faculty of Color Working Group across the 13 member institutions of the New England Humanities Consortium.

Other initiatives are underway as well.

" This will be a process with many challenges, obstacles and even setbacks -- but as we said at the start of this letter, it is also an unprecedented opportunity," Tuitt, Katsouleas and Lejuez wrote. " We can bend the arc of history toward justice if we work together."

UConn students and staff with mental health concerns are asked to contact the Psychological Services Clinic at 860- 486- 4848.

Those who would like to receive emails about Mental Health Mondays should email aacc@uconn.edu to join the listserv. Those who need emergency psychological services should call 211.

Follow Michelle Warren on Twitter -- @ mwarrentc.

The initiative involves black graduate student therapists at the Psychological Services Clinic and staff at the H. Fred Simons African American Cultural Center on campus.

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