Three area professionals spoke Saturday afternoon during a minority mental health awareness workshop at the Wheatley Center for Alternative Education.
Caleeah Curley, chair of health care for the NAACP Temple Unit chapter, which sponsored the event, introduced the speakers: Melee Munoz de Temple, professional counselor; Vincent Robinson of Killeen, professional counselor; and Dr. Kerry-Ann Zamore-Byrd of Harker Heights, a clinical social worker.
Curley emphasized the importance of community and defined it as “the people around you.” The purpose of the workshop is to raise awareness and dispel myths, he said, “to make our community one.”
Muñoz said that mental health can have many causes and that some of them are hereditary, “something that we cannot control.”
Depression can stem from environmental problems, psychological trauma, or biological causes such as abnormal brain function, he said.
“A lot of people don’t like to take medicine,” he said. “I have seen positive results with the pills.”
Group therapy, individual therapy and family therapy can also help, he said.
When it comes to students, he said, getting parents and the school involved is a blessing.
Our generation needs a lot of work on communication, he said, and moral values should never disappear.
“I’m big on respect,” he said. “Take the phone. They don’t need a phone.”
Parents don’t control what kind of media their children are in, he said.
“I always thought if my son didn’t like me, I was doing my job,” he said.
She asked the audience about structured time and agreed with them that children were often unsupervised from 3-6 p.m.
“There’s no one home,” he said.
Avoid empty threats, he said. If a parent tells a child that he is going to do something, he should do it, she said.
There are other options besides corporal punishment, he said.
“You can look at some kids like crazy and that can work,” he said. “All children have a weakness. We just have to find it.
In her counseling, she said, anxiety and depression are two of the biggest things she hears about. And when you ask kids what their biggest stressors are, they say home and school.
Robinson said he previously worked in law enforcement.
“We weren’t prepared to deal with mental health,” he said. “I wanted to become a change agent.”
In the nation’s prison system, he said, 2 million people with mental illness are booked each year. Most of them do not receive treatment while in jail, she said.
After they get out of jail, their history makes it hard for them to get housing or work, he said.
With law enforcement, he said, much of the thinking is about protecting law enforcement officers. Temple, on the other hand, has a Community Oriented Watch System, she said, as do Killeen and Harker Heights.
Zamore-Byrd said she spent 25 years with Child Protective Services. She has also dealt with gang violence and sex trafficking, she said.
“We live in crazy times,” he said.
About three years of the “COVID thing” has seen a rise in depression and anxiety, he said, with minority populations bearing the brunt.
“What did COVID do to all of us?” he said. “It isolated us.”
Minorities were already lagging behind when it came to mental health care, he said. That produced a lot of mistrust, she said.
“If you already had a mental health problem, what does it look like now?” she said.
There has been an increase in financial stress and an increase in deaths, he said. Minorities are more likely to dodge the deal, she said, because of mistrust.
“How do we end that stigma?” she asked.
Having these forums and talking to people is one solution, he said.
“Encourage people to seek help,” he said.