How Denver Youths Are Breaking the Stigma of Mental Health in the Black Community

It's a stat that many people don't know — or don't want to know — but it's time to start paying attention, according to Denver youth leaders and the kids themselves.

On top of stresses he had been going through during his adolescence, Tyree had to deal with the death of his only sister at a young age."My daughter had a traumatic car accident," Cunningham says in the film."Conversations that we had in his seventeen-year-old mind were that she didn't see a way that she could make it. Struggling with that was way too much for him. He lost trust in school, he lost trust in the adults that are supposed to be in the position to help youth.

"Life is just hard for our kids," says Derek Hawkins, dean of students at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Early College, in the film."Our kids deal with so much right now. They're dealing with not just gang life, not just inadequacies they see on social media and stuff like that. A lot of people think that suicide is an easy way out. It's not. It's not an easy way out. Those people are going through something really tough when they go through that.

"When we say mental health, there's also chemical imbalances — depression," he explained."A lot of rhetoric and things are passed through Black families not talking...so when we say mental health, we've got to think about this: You can't spell health without heal. And a lot of us are conditioned to only deal with symptoms in this society and be ill and be sick. That's one of the biggest misconceptions, especially with the youth coming up.

"There is a fear amongst these youths," Tuxx said."It's like, 'What are you going to do with the information once you get it?' And I think we really just have to get to a point where we are really empowering , because they actually do have the answers."

Source: Healthcare Press (healthcarepress.net)

Black Community Youth Denver Youth Denver Black Community Denver Youth Leaders Youth Violence Preventiona Centerdenver Game Changers Youth Advisory Council Colorado

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