Suicide Prevention for Black Youth w/ Dr. Sherry Molock

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Speaker 1: There are few things that make people successful. Taking a step forward to change their lives is one successful trait, but it takes some time to get there. How do you move forward to greet the success that awaits you? Welcome to Next Steps Forward with host, Chris Meek. Each week, Chris brings on another guest who has successfully taken the next steps forward. Now, here is Chris Meek.

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Chris Meek: Hello, I'm Chris Meek, and you've tuned to this week's episode of Next Steps Forward. As always, it's a pleasure to have you with us. Our special guest today is Dr. Sherry Davis Molock. Dr. Molock is a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the George Washington University in Washington, DC. Sherry teaches undergraduate and doctoral courses in clinical psychology and conducts research on the prevention of suicide and HIV in African American youth. Her work has appeared in a number of professional journals. She has served on several local and national boards and currently serves on the editorial board of the American Journal of Community Psychology.

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She recently served on the scientific work group that served as advisors for the Congressional Black Caucus' Emergency Task Force on Suicide Prevention for Black Youth. Dr. Molock was recently awarded a Focus grant from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to implement suicide prevention programs for Black youth in predominantly Black churches. In addition to her work in psychology, Sherry and her husband, Guy, are the founding pastors and pastor emeriti of the Beloved Community Church - United Church of Christ, in Fort Washington, Maryland. Their ministry focuses on family healing that is designed to bring spiritual, physical, and emotional healing to the community.

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She is the proud mother of three young adult children, officially known as the Molock Jewels, and the proud Mimi of Michaela and Oliya. Dr. Sherry Davis Molock, welcome to Next Steps Forward.

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Sherry Davis Molock: Thank you so much and thank you for inviting me to come on and talk about this really important topic.

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Chris: I appreciate your time and certainly appreciate the work that you do. I'm not sure whether I should call you Dr. Molock or Mimi, but we'll figure it out through the show if that's all right.

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Sherry: Sherry's fine.

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Chris: All right, perfect. Sherry, from a big picture standpoint, what are the significant things we should know about mental health in the Black community?

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Sherry: I think probably the biggest thing is that the African Americans, the Black Americans, have similar rates of mental health challenges as other racial groups, but unfortunately, there are also significant disparities, both in terms of help seeking and actually being in treatment. For example, African Americans have about the same rates for depression and anxiety as other racial ethnic groups, but they're much less likely to seek treatment and to receive treatment. While 40% of whites seek treatment or get treatment, only about 25% of Black people actually do. That's really problematic.

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Chris: Why do you think that number is so different versus other populations?

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Sherry: It's really complicated, but I think some of it is access to care. Mental health is-- I'm going to be focusing on mental health, but healthcare in general doesn't tend to be located in Black communities. For people who are particularly in poverty and don't have access to transportation or the location of the center is so far away that it takes two or three hours to get there, people can't go to the facility because they only have daytime hours, they don't have evening hours, they don't provide for childcare. People from the African American community are more likely to be wage earners and not be salaried. Therefore you can't just take off and go to-- like you and I are having this podcast in the middle of the day, but for someone who's a wage earner, they can't do that because they would lose income if they did that. That's part of the problem.

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I think people tend to be underinsured or uninsured completely is problematic also. Then some of it is just cultural stigma associated with help seeking for mental health challenges. I think part of that, and I'm sure we'll talk about this a lot today, is the myth that Black people don't have mental health challenges, which is a widely held view and not just the majority culture, but also in the Black culture. If you do have problems, mental health challenges, there's a clear stigma against seeking help. You need to keep that inside. I know when I was growing up, what goes on in your house stays in your house, and you don't air your dirty laundry.

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I think also because the Black community tends to be pathologized anyway, people are really reluctant to add another "problem" as a stigma in terms of the entire community. We're already viewed as being lazy, stupid, less intelligent. Now we have to also be mentally ill and people really shun away from that. People will feel like instead of seeking professional mental health care, they might go to see a clergy person or talk with a family member. We could talk more about that later on as well.

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Chris: I want to stick with stigma for a minute if we could. I've done some work in the Veteran and First Responder mental health space, and so stigma, obviously, is a-

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Sherry: I'm very well aware of your work.

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Chris: -big word.

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Sherry: I applaud you for it. It's really-- Seriously, it's a very hard community to reach, and you're doing wonderful work in the mental health community. Thank you.

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Chris: I appreciate that. I really do, especially coming from someone like you. In terms of the Black community and stigma and mental health, I've had a handful of guests on over the last couple of years focused on that and specifically in the Black male community, they tend to go to the barbershop, apparently, or the beauty salon in the female community. My question is always to them, well, who's the barber's barber? The barber has to have some issues with having everyone dump on them.

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Sherry: Good question. My husband and I were just talking about this, that there are actually some really good interventions that have been done, both for health care and mental health care in barbershops and in beauty salons in the Black community because that's a trusted person. One of the things that's really important to think about with mental health care for everyone in general is you have to meet people where they are. If you have this wonderful clinic on every corner but there's stigma associated, I know this from the veteran community, there's stigma associated with help seeking, it doesn't matter how wonderful the clinic is and all the wonderful services they provide because people won't access them.

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You have to figure out who's a credible messenger in that particular community. In the veteran community, it might be a fellow soldier. In the Black community, it might be your barber. It might be your hairdresser. It might be your clergy person. I know when I get my hair done, it's therapy for me. I love going because it's very relaxing. It's like a community. We share stories. We lean on each other. We support each other. You're also right. The people who are providing the care, are pouring out that care and compassion, they also need to make sure that they get their own spirit and their own psychological well-being replenished.

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It's like the therapist needs a therapist. The beauty parlor's owner or the barber needs someone to talk to as well and making sure that they get engage in good self-care.

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Chris: Unfortunately, when I get my hair done, it doesn't take long, so there's not much time for me to air things out.

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Sherry: That's okay. It's not how long. My husband is locking his hair, and he was shocked because it took about, I think, an hour. He's usually in and out and then it could be in and out. He goes to a barber. It's wonderful. They give facials, pedicures. They talk and he's there a couple of hours-

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Chris: I have to go there.

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Sherry: -and that's his therapy.

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Chris: You talk about the therapist needing a therapist and that reminded me. I grew up with my grandparents, and everyone knew George. My grandfather's name was George. People would talk to him at the local bar, Murphy's Pub, but then every now and then our church minister would call him and he's like, "I got to go. Jim needs me. If Jim's calling, something's wrong." My grandfather became the therapist's therapist or the minister's therapist, which I just never thought of until my adult life. I just thought that was interesting to hear it from someone like yourself.

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You've talked about the cultural beliefs and societal pressures in the Black community. Your research is focused on suicide rates among young blacks. What emotions does it evoke in you that your research is so unique because the lion's share of suicide research is on older whites? How should we look at that dichotomy?

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Sherry: That is such a great question, and I was thinking about that. The emotional response that it evokes in me is both full of hope and also frustration. I'm full of hope because I do see people making inroads. I do see that people are beginning, particularly, unfortunately, with the advent of COVID. I think COVID created a mental health crisis for all kinds of communities. Certainly the Black community is one of those. I think people really began to understand the importance of prevention in that context. That part is very hopeful. People are shining a spotlight right now on Black youth. That's really important.

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I've been around for a while. I've seen this happen before. I've also seen the attention then be turned to other communities. The frustration for me is that we and our mental health system in the United States have an either-or mentality. We're either going to focus on one group and take all our resources and pour it into that group. To me, it's like having pots boiling on a stove and you have two burners on and you just keep switching the pots. As long as the water's not boiling over, we just leave that one alone for a while. Then it boils over. What's amazing to me is we're shocked. We're like, "Oh, my goodness, that pot's boiling over." That's what happens when you put it on a burner. It eventually will boil over.

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Rather than saying we're either going to focus on older white males or Black youth, why don't we focus on both? The second frustration is, and I know you're going to get into this in detail later, we are very crisis oriented. When the pot is, again, boiling over, then we rush to help those people, when it is such more cost effective to prevent the problem in the first place.

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We have a project going on in New York State now in Black churches, and we just had a meeting right before this meeting. We spent time talking about even there, that's the purpose of the intervention, it is hard for people to understand. It's important to help people before they're even having symptoms. People will say, "We're doing okay." I call it the walking wounded. They're okay, and yes, they're going to work every day, and they're going to school, but underneath of all of that is a whole lot of energy to put forth that facade. Something else might be going on, or they are fine, but they're at risk for having problems later on.

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Let's shore up protective factors so that we can prevent this from ever being a problem. We would save so much more money. People would have better quality of lives. As you can hear it in my voice, that's the frustration. It's like, could we please not make it either-or? Yes, we need to have crisis services, but to be honest with you, I've been doing this work for 36 years, and there aren't any more mental health professionals than when I started. It's the same percentage. We will never catch that up. That cannot be our only approach. We have to use resources that are already in the community.

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To be honest with you, it really does take a village. We've got to rely on each other. When your dad was basically the counselor for the minister, that's what that means. That means being there and being available. We can talk about other things that people can do, but this whole "Let's wait until you're on the ledge," let's move the ledge so you're never on the ledge.

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Chris: Before COVID, I mentioned how my work was in the veteran and first responder space in mental health. From the readings and research I was doing, I was just learning more and more about the crisis that we were facing in society. To your point a moment ago, post-COVID, I've been calling this the mental health tsunami now that are on this side of COVID. I'm talking about veterans and first responders. You're talking about Black youth. Why can't we just talk about mental health, to your point? Why can't we get policymakers to start working with us and to listening to us? Creating another 988 number is not going to help somebody when they're about to pull the trigger.

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The Department of Veterans Affairs created the Suicide Prevention Center in 1986. Nothing has changed. It's still 20 veterans committing suicide a day. Some of them in the VA parking lot. I just applaud you and your husband for the work that you do because we need more champions on the top of the mountain screaming, "Hey, it's not black, yellow, green, blue. It's society."

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Sherry: Right. Certain groups have more risks than others.

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Chris: Of course.

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Sherry: When you bring up the veteran group, veterans in general are more likely to be exposed to traumatic experiences. It's getting better, let me say that, but there's a strong stigma against help-seeking. I did a presentation, a workshop for some ROTC students. Their commanding officers were in the room. We went through this wonderful presentation, great discussion. In the middle of all that, one of the brave cadets said, "This is great, but I can't possibly seek out therapy because it'll really hurt my career chances." I turned to the commanding officer. I said, "Is that true?" He said, "It depends." I was furious.

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I said, "Why did we talk about all this stuff when they're going to be penalized for getting help? Basically, this last hour and a half is a waste of time. If you don't change that culture, you can't penalize people for getting help, because it's really clear, 'Go talk to your commanding officer.' Why would you do that?" That has to change.

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Chris: It's unfortunate. It's 1000% accurate, unfortunately. It's the stigma. To your point about the culture, that's exactly where it has to start because this is going back to, like your grandfather's Cadillac. It's your grandfather's army, but they're still 30 years in. That's just their mindset in terms of you go to the bar after an incident, you do a beer and take a shot. Then you talk about it there and that's it. You lock it up for 30 years.

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Sherry: I've learned so much from gun owners' community because I think most mental health professionals, myself included, I'm guilty of this, would just say, "Just take away firearms." You're not going to take away firearms in the veteran community. That's a non-starter. Again, we have to meet people where they are and say, given this culture, what can we do? One of the things I've learned a lot about is gun safety. We can talk about that. We can talk about responsible gun ownership.

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The other part of that is all of us need to be in the same room at the same time talking to each other instead of throwing barbs at each other because, for example, I was embarrassed to admit that in all of the years I've been doing interventions, I've never sat down with a gun ownership association ever. Now I'm known for partnering with community groups. I thought, well, how come that never even occurred to me? I was ashamed.

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Chris: It's no shame. It's just something you don't think about. Now, like you said, you realize it and we're getting there.

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Sherry: If we want to work with gun safety, then shouldn't we talk to the people who own guns?

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Chris: Exactly. Sherry, I understand that your early focus was on organizing support groups of women grappling with domestic violence. How did that work and form your later focus on suicide research and prevention and how did that evolution take place?

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Sherry: That's an interesting journey. When I first started doing work, I'm actually a child psychologist by training, I lived in Alabama. My husband actually was-- all of my family members have been in the military. My dad's a 20-year veteran for the Army. My husband was in the Air Force. He was a JAG. I was doing this work, volunteering, and I was doing support groups for women who some of them were living in a shelter and some of them just used resources from the shelter.

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I noticed that a lot of these women were depressed and a lot of them were having suicidal thoughts. Part of my interest was how can I get these women to get help? I also was interested in how does having a suicidal parent impact the children in the family? How is this exposure to domestic violence affecting the children in the family? What I found was that the kids in the family were also at really high risk for particularly depression and anxiety and sometimes suicide.

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I also became really interested in when people are having suicidal thoughts, who do they turn to? Because they weren't going to mental health professionals. The kids were sometimes having really escalating depression and sometimes passive ideation. Still, no one was doing anything. I wanted to know who was a helper to them. I found that for a lot of them, it was clergy. At that time, I was not clergy. I was just being a psychologist and happy with that. I didn't want to do anything else with it. I was a churchgoer, but I wasn't thinking about being in ministry.

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I realized that when people saw their pastors, some of the pastors encouraged them to go to mental health treatment, but most of them did not. Some of the pastors gave messages in the pulpit, and the context for this is a Christian church, which in my view as a mental health professional, discouraged people from seeking help. I don't think that was the intention. When people make statements like, "You don't need a psychiatrist, you don't need any medication, you just need Dr. Jesus," for a mental health professional, I was like, oh, okay. They were thinking about going. They're not going now.

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Again, saying to them, these are families that are really stressed out. There's a lot of dysfunction going on in the family. The church is supposed to be a safe place for people to talk about what's going on with them, but that's not going to be true because there's going to be more stigma, I think, in the church because if you're in the church, you're not supposed to be depressed. If you have God and you have strong faith, then you don't need to be depressed. Why are you depressed?

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It's so interesting because the mental health professional community and the faith community both want people to have good mental health, and they want people to have good well-being. All of us want people to be healthy. Why don't we talk to each other? Why do we not talk with each other? I learned from doing surveys in the church that people wanted help, but they were afraid that mental health professionals would "take away their Jesus." I was like, what does that mean? "They're going to dissuade me from praying. They're going to try to talk me out of my religious beliefs."

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That harkens back to the days of Freud, but Freudian theory is not even the predominant theory in psychology anymore. I said, okay. Then I asked the mental health people. They were like, "Those people just pray. They're not really willing to work on their problems." Wait a minute. I think there's a lot of misunderstanding and myths that are bound here where people have these misconceptions about what goes on in therapy, for example. You as a therapist, you know, we don't talk you out of anything. This is your journey. We're here to respect your journey and to guide you with giving you tools so that you can have more optimal life and have more better well-being. We're not here to tell you, dissuade you one way or the other about your religious beliefs.

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Then I had to share with my faith community members, "You can do both. You can pray and have a mental health professional work with you at the same time. Again, we have the same goals. We want you to be well." Then the other thing for me, particularly for the Black church, I knew growing up in the Black church and then being a member of the Black church, that the Black church is the most significant, widely-respected community organization for the Black community. I knew that the Black church could change norms about anything. I see this with educational attainment. I see this with voting. I see this with social services that people provide for people who are homeless, for people who need shelter, for people who need clothing, et cetera. I thought if the church can be so powerful in these other areas, they could do it for mental health too.

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Chris: As a follow-up to that, in the comments you made, obviously I remember the clergy at some time or another works with parishioners or others coping with mental health challenges. Your intervention efforts go beyond the vocational level because you have a unique vantage point of being a researcher, a professor of psychology, and a minister. Why have you chosen to do your intervention work within the faith community?

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Sherry: Again, part of it is because I said earlier, it's the faith community is really in a position to stomp out stigma. Rather than worrying about, do you have a mental health background? What you can do is put these messages in sermons. One of the things that I'm known for is that a lot of my sermons have mental health content. The joke in my church was when I preached that we were having group therapy, that's what we would call it.

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One of the things that it helps to talk about these topics, first of all, if you're from the Christian background or Judeo-Christian background, there are many people in the Bible who are depressed. Moses is depressed for most of the time that they talk about him. My parishioners jokingly said, "I think Moses had chronic depression." I said, "Yes," because we talk about this quite a bit, so I think he did too. Being able to lift up those texts is so powerful because then people don't feel alone. They're not the only one. These are pillars of our faith who occasionally had depression, who got frustrated, who were anxious, just like the rest of us.

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Then we talk about how in the Judeo-Christian tradition, most of the time, yes, God could intervene supernaturally, but God often intervenes through people. That's very powerful to say, you know when Moses was really frustrated with the people? He was having to judge them by himself, and he felt very overwhelmed. He told God, 'I want to die.' God didn't send an angel. I think God sent an angel, but it's figuratively, but He sent his father-in-law Jethro. Jethro came and said, "You know what, son, you're trying to do this all by yourself. It's too much. Let's get some people to help you." That's what they did. That happens over and over again. It tells you that God can work through people.

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One of the people that God might choose to work through is a therapist. It could be a therapist. It could be a friend. Again, I don't think it's either-or, I think all of those people are needed to help you.

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Chris: You've mentioned a few times how the faith community and the mental health community aren't working together, but they should be because again, it's going to be strength in numbers, if you will. How can both communities get better at collaborating?

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Sherry: By developing partnerships and doing that with intentionality. Coming with an open mind and a flexible mind. Really learning to listen carefully and be respectful. One of the things one of my colleagues said to me one time was, "I can't talk to people in the church because they do all that prayer stuff." I said to him, "You know what? If you feel comfortable with the science," and he said, "I do," then I said, "Let's look up what happens when people pray." Neuroscientifically, you can see there are differences in levels of endorphins and serotonin when people pray. There's a scientific basis to why prayer makes people feel hopeful and less anxious. That's the science of it.

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Now the experience of it, it's not different from the science of it, but you don't need to know the science of it to appreciate and benefit from the experience of it. What I try to share with people is we just have different models for understanding the world, but our goal is the same. Whether someone understands that the reason why when they pray is because dopamine is released, do we really care or do we want the person to experience the powerful healing of prayer? I think it's the latter.

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For those who want to think about it in scientific terms, that's fine. Another way we can think about it, we know from research that having a strong sense of belonging and feeling connected to people is very therapeutic, and it's also very preventive. Now we can talk about the mechanism for that, the scientific mechanism, which is what I study, but that doesn't mean it's not working. Whether I talk about it that way or not, it works.

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In my metaphor, when I'm presenting to a scientific community or writing an article for a journal, I will talk about the science of social connectedness and belongingness, and I can pull out my theories for that. When I'm talking to a church community, I'll say, "Y'all know it takes a village, right?" Same thing. It's just different metaphors or different models for understanding what's going on.

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Chris: You mentioned the science piece a few times there. How much more research needs to be done to better understand the mental health challenges and particularly suicide of young Blacks?

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Sherry: It needs to be a lot more. SAMHSA, the Substance Abuse Mental Health Administration, does very powerful work in suicide prevention, and they have a subject expert. They have a policy academy that they do once a year. It's amazing. They invite different state organizations to come every year. Then they have people like me who are subject matter experts to help them develop policy for their state. One of the things that is frustrating for me is that all the people in the room, we know each other very well. I think that's because there's so few people who do this work. The need for the research is astronomical.

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There is a huge shift in policy around funding these projects. A lot of that came out of the Congressional Black Caucus' Sound the Alarm paper, which I was one of the persons that helped them work on that. The beauty of that project, it's the first time in my career where we wrote a paper or did a report and some action came out of it. One of the actionable things was that people put funding into doing the research. There's been a major effort to make sure that these projects are funded. What I don't want to see happen is that, again, water boiling is we do that for a couple of years and we go, "Okay, we did that. Let's do something else. Let's prioritize something else," because that priority won't go away.

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We're being naive if we don't think that we have to continue to focus on this. We have to increase the number of people, not just the clinicians, but the people doing the research that helps to promote better mental health for everyone. Without the research going on, we don't know what works and doesn't work, and really importantly, why? The way that we can multiply our efforts and disseminate this to different communities is understanding the why.

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For example, you work with veterans, and I work with youth. What we both know that works for those people is having a sense of connectedness. We both know that the messenger is really important. The differences why we need to research is who is that in the veteran community, and who is that in the Black community? It's not the same people. We know that veterans are exposed to trauma. That is somewhat-- it's not unique to that community, but it's different. It's one of the things that sets it apart.

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We know that Black youth are more exposed to trauma. We can learn from each other. Now what that trauma is might be different. How exposed or not exposed you are to it might be different as well. The fact is we know that trauma is a risk factor. We both know that having a sense of connectedness and belongingness is a protective factor. We need the research just so we can demonstrate that.

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Chris: We've been talking to Dr. Sherry Davis-Molock about mental health in the Black community. Stay with us because we'll be right back after a short break to continue our conversation. We'll be right back.

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Speaker 1: You are listening to Next Steps Forward. To reach Chris Meek or his guest on the show today, please call in to 1-888-346-9141. That's 1-888-346-9141, or send an email to Chris at nextstepsforward.com. Now, back to this week's show.

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Chris: We are back. I'm Chris Meek, host of Next Steps Forward. My guest today is Dr. Sherry Davis Molock. Sherry is a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the George Washington University in Washington, DC. Dr. Mullock teaches undergraduate and doctoral courses in clinical psychology and conducts research on the prevention of suicide and HIV in African American youth. She and her husband, Guy, are also the founding pastors and pastor emeriti of the Beloved Community Church - United Church in Christ, in Fort Washington, Maryland.

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Sherry, we were talking before the break about the tendency to focus on mental health crises rather than mental illness prevention. In terms of addressing the issues of young blacks specifically, where should the prevention over crisis treatment search for solutions take us?

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Sherry: Definitely focusing on prevention. What are the protective factors that protect against suicide? Whenever you're trying to prevent something from happening, you want to minimize risk and increase protective factors. What are the protective factors for Black youth? As we were saying earlier, some of the protective factors in all communities, having a sense of belongingness and social connectedness is important. What that might look like for Black youth might be different. We know that having family support is important. We know that living in safer communities.

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One of the areas that we need to really focus more on structural issues. A lot of times we look at the individual level about what specifically was going on in a young person's life that made them think about taking their life. Those factors are important, but it's not the only one. For example, we know that the rates have increased significantly in the last couple of years since, specifically since 2022, which is in the middle of the COVID pandemic. The rates have gone up about 57% for Black youth. They've decreased in other and white youth. What are the differences in stressors that are going on?

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If we know that, for example, at my church, we knew that people being isolated is a risk factor. Before, we didn't wait for someone to be in stress or in crisis, we said we need to step up how we can be together as a community. Thank God for Zoom. We increased our presence. Instead of just having Sunday service and Bible study, we had Sunday service, Bible study, book club, stress management. We were getting together four times a week instead of once, maybe twice a week. We had subgroups. We did fun things. We had Pizza Sunday. We had Pajama Sunday. We had Bring Your Pet to Church. We just try to think of really creative ways to increase belongingness, because what we couldn't-- this is really important, we could not decrease isolation because of the pandemic.

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I have an uncle who's a veteran, and he was getting services at the VA. He was talking to me about how he's depressed during the pandemic. He said to me, "Everything I love has been taken away from me." All of his activities since the social connectedness were in music communities, poetry communities. All of that shut down during COVID. In order for us to make sure we can enhance his well-being, we have to substitute those things that he loves. How can you do that? Which requires sometimes for us to think outside the box.

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We know kids need to feel connectedness. We know that substance use is a risk factor. What can we do to not just decrease substance use, but prevent substance use? Some of that's policy structural things like how easy is it to have access to alcohol? How easy is it to have access to other kinds of drugs? One of the things I get frustrated with the gun ownership associations is they have really good ideas for people who are registered gun owners, but most Black youth are not registered gun owners. They get guns off the street.

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While yes, decreasing firearm or increasing firearm safety is important, if you remember that these people get these guns different ways, so we have to deal with how can we prevent the proliferation of guns on the street, for example? How can we increase a sense of belongingness in schools where we know bullying goes along? One of the best ways to marginalize any group of people is to control where they live. If you control where they live, you control their access to care, access to healthcare, mental health care, food, nutritious food, safe spaces, flexible ways in which they can get a sense of connectedness in multiple ways. All of that can be contingent on where you live.

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Being exposed to environmental toxins is dependent on where you live. The same token, if that's what we know, those are our risk factors. How can we ensure that people have safe housing spaces, people have a living, earn livable wage, you can live on that income? How can we guarantee health care for people? If you fix those three things so that people have food security, housing security, and safety, a lot of the need for mental health prevention will go away because people won't live such stressed lives.

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Chris: Sherry for president?

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Sherry: No.

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[laughter]

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Chris: Good answer. Nobody wants that job, clearly. Did you ever think the words, thank God for Zoom, would leave your mouth?

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Sherry: No. I do thank God for Zoom.

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Chris: Amen.

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Sherry: My colleagues and I complain about Zoom. I tell them, "I want you to imagine how we would have taught our classes during the pandemic without it."

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Chris: You talked about your uncle being disconnected during the pandemic. People don't realize how important that sense of touch is for us mentally, from a handshake to a hug to a fist bump or whatever it may be. We don't think about it. We take it for granted. All of a sudden, it's literally stripped from your life for two years.

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Sherry: We really saw mental health challenges go up amongst our students, too, because of that. It's so interesting to see this first class of students graduates through the COVID experience. They had a completely different sense of connectedness to the school. We noticed it. Increases in students struggling, increases in referrals for mental health services for students, not having enough mental health resources on campus. We weren't the only school, everyone was going through that. Just, again, we were trying to figure out what's going on. I'd say, you know what? They haven't been physically in front of everybody in two years. They don't have the same sense of connectedness because of that. You're thinking, well, we're on Zoom, but it's not the same.

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Chris: My middle daughter, she actually graduates from high school this Friday.

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Sherry: Oh, congratulations.

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Chris: Thank you. I'm assuming she makes it there. To that point, I'm very curious about what research is going to look like, say, 10 years from now on her class, this generation. Then my wife and our youngest son, he's 12 now, but he was in, what, I guess, seven, so second grade, turning eight when all this happened. He didn't know any differently. Still, when you're seven years old, you got to run around the playground and play kickball on the monkey bars and all that stuff. I'm just very curious to see what this research looks 10 years from now. Then-

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Sherry: I keep saying my colleagues who we do this work. It's going to be rocky for a couple of more years, at least, because we don't know the long-term outcome of COVID and all of the consequences on mental health yet. We were like, were out of it. I'm like, no, but the consequences, we're not out of that.

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Chris: Again, this is the tsunami coming up for the second wave here.

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Sherry: Right.

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Chris: Sherry, let's delve deeper into the whole prevention over crisis angle. It would seem to make so much sense to invest in prevention because there don't seem to be enough dollars to cover all the crisis care that's needed today. If you could wave a magic wand and immediately fix the system, what would you do?

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Sherry: Like I said earlier, I would guarantee that people had a livable wage, people had stable housing, access to good food. I think we forget how important healthy food is. We live in a country, unfortunately, where there are children who have never had fresh produce, who think that vegetables come in a can or fruit comes in a can. They don't have fresh fruit. There are kids that don't live in spaces where they can play outside, it's not safe to play outside. We're there. Bike paths and dog parks are great, but where are the playgrounds and the rec centers for these same children? That's really important.

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My magic wand would also ensure that people have access to good health care and mental health care, easily accessible by public transportation and/or walking. It's really important. I would pay attention to the multiple places where kids are exposed to racial discrimination. One of our graduate students did their dissertation on exposure of Black male youth to racism online gaming platforms. It was disheartening to see their exposure. There was not one child in that study who was not exposed on some level. Some of it's direct and some of it's vicariously. What goes on in social media, again, we think that that doesn't impact people's self-esteem, but it does. Even larger than that, it gives these young people the message that their entire group is devalued and not viewed as being worthwhile. That creates a sense of, I don't know, our research shows that kids don't necessarily embrace hopelessness, but they embrace fatalism.

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If you ask them, "Are you hopeful for the future?" They'll say, "Sure." If you ask them, "Do you think things will get better in the future?" They'll say, "No." We think kids are not listening to the political rhetoric, they are. They point to things that they've heard on TV. They point to policy changes and law changes, changes in the law. It gives them the message that people don't think they're important or people don't care about them. It's hard to be hopeful and optimistic in that context. I would definitely do that.

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I would still have crisis services available, but like we said earlier, if we don't change norms, cultural norms about help-seeking, people won't access the resources anyway. Definitely we have to really change the stigma associated with help-seeking. That starts at home, but it also can start in the faith community. It can start in the organizations that we hold dear or that we really care about or whose opinion counts to us. Again, the veteran community. It has to be other vets and also commanding officers.

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Ironically, what I love about and find challenging about both the veteran community and the Black community is if you use interventions in relatively closed spaces, what I mean by closed, they're well-boundaried, that that potentially has the biggest impact because you can change the norms easier. People already embrace the importance of norms in that culture. In the veteran community, people already embrace the identity of being a service person and what that means and how these people's opinion matter to you. It's the same thing in a faith community. It already embraces a strong sense of identity that I'm a member of this church or this synagogue or this mosque, that this is part of who I am. That's great.

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Now, what goes with that, though, is responsibility. That since you have this powerful impact on cultural norms and values, use your superpower for good. Encourage people and make it okay, make it "normal" to seek help. Don't penalize people for seeking the help. Don't ostracize people for seeking the help.

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Chris: You mentioned a few times the cultural norms in terms of language and how we talk and treat each other. Previous to COVID, I remember people saying, "Oh, I need a mental health day. I'm going to call in sick or take a day off from work." Post-COVID, corporations are intentionally giving you days if you need it, but they're calling it either PTO or wellness days. Do you think that is to reduce stigma or creating a new cultural norm because people afraid to say, "I need a mental health day" post-COVID, or is that just a catchphrase for big corporate America?

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Sherry: I think it's an intentional shift in changing cultural norms and values by-- We know that mental health, mental illness-- you almost never hear people say mental illness anymore because of the stigma associated with it. That's okay. There are colleagues of mine I know who disagree with that. To me, when you're trying to change behavior in general, you need to meet people where they are. If people cannot embrace the concept of mental illness, then why are we getting stuck on nomenclature? What I want the person to do is get help. I don't care if you call it behavioral health, mental health, wellbeing, feel good. I don't care. I think we need to continue to meet people where they are.

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I do appreciate and respect the need for precision in the terms that we use, that when we say a particular term, we all understand what that means. I also think the stigma associated with mental illness is so strong that there was just a whole segment of people we'll never be able to reach that way. Ultimately, I don't think it's inaccurate to say mental wellbeing because we do want people to be well.

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There's also a move in psychiatry and psychology to be more positive. The term wellbeing is more positive than illness.

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Chris: We've seen a lot of different I'll say new methods of seeking mental health treatments, specifically technology. What are your thoughts on, in any community, whether it be veterans, first responders, African American, whatever it is, and if it's just you and your phone and an app and it doesn't go anywhere else, and it's a preventative tool, do you think that's something that would be widely used?

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Sherry: Yes, I love it. Again, meeting people where they are. Young people are technology-driven. I think I do pretty good for an old woman, and I can't barely keep up. My 11-year-old granddaughter is teaching Mimi stuff that, "Mimi, let's do this." One day I was upset because the bus dropped her off at the wrong stop and I was going to go and kill the people in the educational system for losing my grandbaby. She texts me back and said, "Grandma Mimi, calm down." She showed me how to locate her on my phone. This is all through texts, so that I would know where she was. I was like, "Oh, okay." She said, "Why'd you get so upset?" I said, "They lost you." She said, "I wasn't lost. We took a detour." She said, "You could track me on the phone." I said, "Oh, okay."

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Young people have innovative ways of reaching each other and supporting each other. We should embrace that because they live in a different world. Their way of connecting might be different than the way we connect. That doesn't mean connecting is less important, it's just a different way of doing it. I also think it's really important to use technology for hard-to-reach communities. For example, people who live in rural communities, there may not be a mental health professional for 100 miles. Wouldn't it be great if you could reach that person through teletherapy?

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One of the ironic blessings that came out of COVID was for just a little while, almost every state in the United States allowed therapists to do therapy using teletherapy across state lines, because I don't know if your listeners know, but you have to be licensed in the state where the therapist is. This became a big issue for us because we have a training psychological center in my department. When students had to go home, we were not licensed to treat them in their home state. Literally, people are going home, they're stressed out about COVID. This is the time when they really need their therapist, and we can't talk to them because we're not licensed in Montana, wherever they were.

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Every state, I believe it was every state, said for about 18 months, regardless of where the therapist is, if they are licensed in that state, we will allow you to do teletherapy. I have a lot of colleagues who are clinicians now who are only doing teletherapy because it's cost effective. You can see more people, you don't have the overhead of an office, you can be flexible with your time. For the client, it's wonderful because the client can see you six o'clock, seven o'clock in the evening, and therapists are recognizing, "You know what? I can reach more people by seeing them at 5.30, and it's okay." It's a great advent.

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Apps are great because sometimes you don't need a full therapy session, but you need a boost, or you need like a little mini pick-me-up, or you need help with sleep. I know a lot of my clients, my former clients use the sleep apps. It's great because you can do the Calm. Calm is one of the commonly used ones. You can get this intervention that you can control when you do it. You can use it anywhere, at any time, any place, any time of day, and you get what you need, and it's free, or a nominal fee. It's a great idea.

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Chris: I was going to ask you about the crossing state lines with the licensing, because that would make-

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Sherry: I wish we would go back to that. Oh. This is a-

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Chris: Totally agree.

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Sherry: This is my frustration. I'm like, look, come on now. If we could do it in a crisis, we can do it all the time.

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Chris: Absolutely agree, and I view it very similar to having a law degree, you have to pass the bar in that state to practice law. Law is law. If I go to law school in California, and I practice in New York, it's the same classes, the same stuff, there's going to be different state statutes. I understand that, but--

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Sherry: Even in psychology, it's frustrating, because for the most part, you take-- everybody, every guild does this, medical school, law school. Psychology, we take a national test. Everybody takes that same test. Then you take a local test. The local test almost always is ethics and the laws that govern who can practice psychology. I'm like, why can't we standardize that so that it's the same? Because ethics, we all take ethics in graduate school. Fine, ethics is great, it's important. Let's do ethics, and then you pass it or you don't, and then you can practice in all states.

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Again, for people who live in Alaska, for people who live in Montana, Iowa, where they're much more rural, they're never going to have enough practitioners or clinicians doing things with teletherapy, and you don't have to wait for that community to replenish or get enough therapists. There are therapists like New York State. There's never enough, but they have more than most, so why can't a person see someone who's in New York?

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Chris: What's more challenging and what's more rewarding, ministering to a congregation or teaching classes full of restless undergrads? Have you enjoyed one more than the other?

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Sherry: No, I love both. Different energy, but I love both. I love teaching undergrads because it's your opportunity to encourage someone and excite someone about the field from the beginning. It's like watching a flower bloom. I love them. They're freshmen when I see them, and in four years, five years from then, I see them when they're graduating. They come by or send me a note.

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One of the most touching and rewarding parts of teaching at the higher educational level is you don't know how much you can impact a life. Sometimes it's not even the entire classes. It's that recognizing or really listening to someone when they're struggling through something or paying attention and noticing, hey, I haven't seen this person in my class in a couple of days. Let me just check in on them, see how they're doing. Those are the kinds of lessons that they learn that carry them for a lifetime.

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Ministering to a congregation is wonderful. In some ways it's similar because you watch flowers bloom. Also because being a minister, being a pastor of a church is a very intimate journey with people. It's a way that you can be in someone's life and journey with them that is so wonderful. You see people at their worst, but you also see them at their best. I was sharing with one of my daughter's friends the other day that the three things that we do in the Christian church, which are so intimate, are funeralize, marry, and baptize. Those are pivotal moments in that person's life, their family's life, and you get to share in it. It's an honor to be able to do that.

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It's also an honor to be able to teach students, and so I don't find it boring. I don't ever get bored. I've been doing both for-- I've been doing ministry for 25 years. I've been a teacher for 36 years. I still get excited. I still can't wait for school. I'm glad we're in a break, but I can't wait for school to start too because it's all new people. We'll be going on a new journey together. Also, with both of them, what's going on in the world impacts what you do. Part of the challenge with my program in New York is, we were talking about this, when something happens in the community, we want the pastors to do a sermon about suicide prevention, but something can happen in the community that they have to shift quickly.

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I remember doing that when my husband and I were actively pastoring where something would happen in the community, and I already had my sermon written, and I would go, "Oh, wow. A hurricane hit. We got to talk about that." You have to shift abruptly. That happens in college too. People are surprised when a crisis will happen, and we will have to suspend what we're doing to talk about what's going on with them. What I love about both, the flexibility to do that. That's my judgment and my decision and my partnering with both of those communities to say, "We're walking this journey together. When we need to pivot or we need to stop and take a pause for the cause, we will do that."

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Chris: Dr. Sherry Davis Molock, thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you for the very important work that you do.

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Sherry: Thank you so much for having me. This is great talk, great company. Again, I really applaud you for the work that you do, and please continue doing the good fight.

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Chris: Appreciate that. Thank you.

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Sherry: You're welcome.

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Chris: I'm Chris Meek. We're out of time. We'll see you next week. Same time, same place. Until then stay safe and keep taking your next steps forward.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning in to Next Steps Forward. Be sure to join Chris Meek for another great show next Tuesday at 10:00 AM Pacific time and 1:00 PM Eastern time on the VoiceAmerica Empowerment channel. This week, make things happen in your life.

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