OneRouge Community Check-In: Week 221

Connecting Poverty, Mental Illness, and Suicide Prevention: Resources, Tools, & Advocacy

The link between poverty and mental illness is deeply intertwined, with financial stress and lack of access to care often leading to mental health crises. Poverty can worsen conditions like anxiety and depression, and untreated mental illness can make it harder to maintain stable employment, creating a harmful cycle. In extreme cases, this connection increases the risk of suicide, making it crucial to address both poverty and mental health together. Recognizing these factors is vital for creating resources that offer real support for individuals in need.

One of the most powerful tools in suicide prevention is the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, a nationwide helpline that provides immediate support for those in crisis. By dialing 988, individuals can access free, confidential help 24/7, offering a lifeline to people who may feel trapped in the cycle of poverty and mental illness. In addition to the helpline, advocacy for expanded mental health services, affordable healthcare, and economic support is crucial to preventing crises before they occur.

Breaking the link between poverty, mental illness, and suicide requires a comprehensive approach. By increasing awareness, promoting access to resources like 988, and advocating for systemic change, we can work toward a future where no one has to face these challenges alone.

---

Notes

Casey Phillips:  Very personal moment, but y'all have our family and it's like we've been together, for four, almost going on five years together now on Fridays. And it's not a, that's, it's helped me grow by being honest and laying it out and mental health is really super important. Proactive mental health is very important and I wish I would have known that earlier. So Tia, I'm going to turn it over to you if you're back at the office and nope, still sitting at the train tracks. There she is.

Tia Fields: Hey, I'm still sitting at the train tracks, but we're going to keep it rolling. Good morning and happy Friday, One Rouge family. We have a very crucial call today with some very important people. I do want to give a trigger warning. We will be talking about suicide prevention and our mental health So if there's a moment where you need to take a break,  please take that space. We're going to start with Ms. Caila. You have five minutes to introduce yourself, tell the people who you are and what it is that you do. 

Caila Palmer: All right. As I shared with some people already, I'm from New Orleans, Louisiana. I've been out in Baton Rouge about eight years now. Currently I'm a provisional licensed professional counselor. I just finished up my master's program at LSU back in May of 2023. And I'm currently working as a mental health counselor in the Baton Rouge and New Orleans area. I work with children, teens, and adults, and work with anything from behavior problems, anxiety, depression, to more serious mental health issues like bipolar and schizophrenia. My preference is working with adjustment disorders and grief, but I enjoy the work that I do. I like to go ahead and connect with the kids and guess the fun part, I guess what I like about my job is being able to see the growth and change in clients when they really do connect with the services and the goals of what they're trying to achieve from getting counseling. 

Tia: Thank you so much for thank you so much for sharing and I'm going to go ahead and introduce Ms. Addie.

Addie Duval:  Hi, good morning, everyone. My name's Addie Duval I'm a licensed clinical social worker. I work for Start Corporation. That's why I love being a social worker. I've worked in many different sectors. So really happy that you guys are highlighting this topic. I think it's really important. I wanted to talk a little bit about Start Corporation, because I'm really proud of what we do. I don't want to really talk a whole lot about the services because you can go to our website and our website is phenomenal and listen or read all about what we do, with adults and kids. We do primary health care. We do a lot of housing and homeless work services that are geared towards mental health. But what I think START does really well that's applicable to our conversation today is we really leverage the resources that we have, which are always limited for all of us and really build on those community partnerships. So when a person, no matter where they access any one of our programs we're always evaluating them for what other kind of holistic things that they might need. If they access us through coordinated entry, because they see us or coming in because they are experiencing homelessness. Then we're looking at their primary health care needs, their behavioral health, if there's any substance use. All of those things, and whether we do that in house, or we refer out, so it's really a whole person approach. And we collect a lot of data. So I wanted to take the platform to say that we are seeing that this approach is truly effective in 2023 in our HUD housing projects by taking this approach. 98 percent of the hundreds of clients that we have either exited to permanent housing or maintained it during that entire time. They worked with us. 98 percent of them were connected to Medicaid or some other type of insurance. 90 percent connected to mainstream benefits and had them and obtained them things like food stamps and whatnot. And even though this doesn't sound like a really high number, 41 percent of them increased their income. And for those of you work in this sector, if you're dealing with people who have chronic mental illness who have been chronically homeless, which means homeless for 12 months or more. That's a big number. So again, I think that the approach that we all know and have heard about when it's implemented does work really well. 

Tia: Thank you. And not the least, but one of my favorites, Ms. Myles, go ahead and introduce yourself and. In honor of 988 day being this Sunday, you can go ahead and jump right into what 988 is. Okay. Happy Friday. What's good, everyone? 

Tonja Miles: Okay. Happy Friday. What's good, everyone? My name is Tonja Myles. I live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I'm from Baton Rouge. I live in Zachary. I'm a military veteran, nine years, military police, last two years, military intelligence. I'm also a licensed ordained minister. I am a wife. I'm an aunt of some of the most amazing human beings on the planet. My nieces and nephews. I am a certified peer support specialist, meaning that I'm a peer counselor. I get to use my lived experience every day. I wake up every day to push hope, to let people know that you're not the only one. I have a mental health diagnosis of PTSD, depression, and anxiety. I've also been in recovery for over 38 years. My last drug of choice was crack cocaine. I have written two books. The first one from the crack house to the white house. And it basically talks about my journey to healing and to restoration, and the ongoing journey of healing from a lot of sexual trauma. I'm a three time suicide attempt survivor. I've been in a mental hospital twice. I've been married for 30 years, a miracle. And so my husband and I started a program called Set Free Indeed Ministry over 20 something years ago. We opened up the first licensed faith based treatment center in the state of Louisiana, where we were able to be recognized by President George W. Bush for the work that we do. And I also worked with his administration for six years as an advisor. I love what I do. I wake up every day to do this work. Casey said, it's heavy. I think out of all those things I said, I've been blessed and fortunate to do a lot of things. I think I am funny as heck, a married heart does feel like a medicine and you got to laugh, find joy in this work because when you deal with people on their worst day, trying to get them to their best day. It is heavy, but I wake up every day I can save lives and change the world. Yeah. I'm fortunate to also be a subject matter expert for SAMHSA, who runs mental health and substance abuse for the country. Also for 988 or Vibrant. Vibrant runs 988 for the country. I was gracious to be asked to be their new marketing director. We're going to be pushing out more information about 988, which is a national suicide, substance use disorder, and crisis hotline that people can call. 24 hours, 7 days a week. They can call, chat or text. They will be connected to a local person. Look, it's just like 911. Wherever you are, you can call 911. If you have a fire going on, that would be that dispatch to your house. If it's something medical, Then you would have EMS. And so that's what 988 is all about. I was able to testify twice on Capitol Hill and did a lot of work getting up to getting 988 because it took a lot. And Nancy Pelosi, when she hit the gravel to say, now, this is law, because it's going to be the rest of our lives. She quoted me on something. I'm grateful to do this work. Most people didn't think I would live past 18. I don't take this lightly. And I'm just grateful. I like working with a lot of people because at the end of the day, that's how we move the needle, that's how we normalize mental health. And look, I don't talk about those things. Like I'm bragging about it. I talk about those things that I survived it. And if we can normalize the conversation and address stigma, when it comes to mental health, I think more people would be prone to reach out and talk about it. I can't tell you how many people, when I begin to share my story, But I just don't share my story. I share resources because everybody got a story. But what are the resources to get that person? And it makes people open up. So about 2 and a half years ago, I started working for the Huntsman Family Foundation. The Huntsman Family Foundation is one of the most philanthropic families that's addressing mental health and substance use disorder across the country. They had a sister who died of a drug overdose. And she also had mental health challenges and look, she was a billionaire, so it wasn't like, it wasn't lack of resources. It was because of stigma and other stuff. And mental health does not discriminate from the curbside to the country club and broke to billionaires. And at the end of the day, one of the biggest things that I see is the awareness piece, the stigma piece and the lack of resources and working all together because we know there are some amazing people on this call right now for real and their strength in numbers. And that's how we move the needle and that's how we address mental health. Because right now, our country is in a mental health crisis. If we're in crisis, we need to act like we are. And John Huntsman, I'll say this now and John Huntsman, who founded the Family Foundation, he was one of the first billionaires when Warren Buffett said, look, we have billions of dollars and we know that we can't spend it all. We're going to have trust fund babies throughout the next generation after our family. We need to do something to change the world. And John Huntsman was the first billionaire to do that. And what he's done for cancer, he told his kids, I want you to do the same thing when it comes to mental health. And we're not playing, we wake up every day to do this work. And at the end of the day, we know that having these conversations, being in these spaces, it's creating these spaces like, Casey and Tia, you guys are doing, those are some of the things that's going to help our community and our country because we are in crisis and we need to act like we are. 

Tia: Thank you so much for that, Tonja. I know, as you already said, that mental illness and drug addiction does not exclude any class of people but particularly I'm curious, and this is open to anyone what role does poverty or how much does poverty impact one's mental illness and their access to resources? 

Tonja: Okay, I'll do that one. Look, at the end of the day it affects a lot because I planted a flower garden in my yard. And one of the things that, I was doing this DIY project and the guy said you got to check your soil. Cause I'm thinking I can just put these amazing flowers in the soil and I'm going to expect them to bloom. Guess what? They're not because the soil is not good. And so we have to create a soil systems communities, where people can grow, where they can flourish. Because, they can be green, but, a flower that has a bloom, it's supposed to bloom, not just be green. And I think that when we really talk about poverty and mental health, we have to make sure that people go in a space where they can heal. If you're seeing blight, and if you're seeing all these other things, and you're hearing all this stuff about you live in the worst zip code in America, in the city, that messes with somebody's psyche. The other thing I was at a meeting just this week and they were talking about food deserts. We know the science and the data says that gut and brain health is key. We have to make sure that people have the right nutrition and places that they can go to feed their tummy that feeds their brain, particularly when it comes to our kids who brains are developing. And so I think it's vital that we have to address mental health. And poverty, because if we want people to grow, we have to make surroundings for healing and surroundings for growth.  

Tia: Thank you. Let me let me be a little bit more specific and hopefully maybe Ms. Palmer or Ms. Duval can jump in. When I think about the social determinants of health, how much of that aspect of assessing the person holistically plays a factor in either suicide rates or again, resources to mental health?

Addie: So I can speak a little bit on that. There was a study done that in among children, and this was 18 and under in the more impoverished communities, there was a 30 percent increased rate of suicide in the lowest poverty level that they found. And there's a lot of dynamics there. And I think one that we don't talk a whole lot about, because again, it comes from, if you were raised that way, it makes sense that you might be depressed. It makes sense that you might use drugs. There's so much research that's starting to come out about brain development. And when, I'm sure a lot of you on this call have heard about the adverse childhood experiences.  And so when we look at it from the social determinants of health, when kids might be going in for normal health care type things, we really need to be including and evaluating those social determinants of health, but not only to just look for resources and referrals, that's super important. But at the same time is to recognize that their brain and body chemistry is different because of this trauma, because of the experiences that they have had as children and are continuing to have. And so what does that mean is that we have to recognize that there's some level potentially of certain medical things are. A different way of treatment that does include all of the holistic stuff, but, and there's just still not even enough out there about what we do with these brain studies, but I think it also destigmatizes when you look at our gray and white matter are not working as well in our brain, and as a result of that, we have less impulse control. We have less ability to think clearly through a situation. If we are suicidal, or we are those things, we're not thinking about natural other alternatives that are better. And extreme levels of emotional pain. Those are things that we really have to consider tackling if we're going to get to the root of the problem.  

Tia: Speaking of adverse childhood experiences, how can one access an ACES test? Is that something that I have to go to a provider for? Or is this a really given test that anybody can take? 

Addie: You can Google it. So it's just a list of different factors that are adverse childhood experiences, and it's a range of things and you get a score. And basically, it just means that the higher your score, the more likely it is through research that you're going to have X, Y, and Z issues going on. And so I think again, it demystifies some of these things like, oh, people growing up in this situation just are like this. It really, there's just so much out there that shows the effects on our differences, on our heart, on our, all of our organs when we go through those traumas. 

Tonja: And I'd like to piggyback on that, I'd like to hear, from your perspective, I know the first time that I was made aware of the ACEs, and I'm sitting there, matter of fact, I'm speaking somewhere and one of the persons who wrote the ACEs was there. And as I'm looking at it, it's 10 questions and I'm now grading myself and it was like eight out of nine and it just all made sense. And some of the things that it said that if a child went through, like I did, I would probably end up, using drugs, end up doing these things. And one of the things that we did as well, when we worked in the prison, we had some of that we did, I think, 526 women over a year period, and they did a self reporting ACES. And most of them had most of them were like a 5 or 6. And I think that if this is something that kids or, and if it's talked about in schools, I think it can really help, maybe detract kids. So maybe some of the things that they might do, like I did, I made bad decisions because I did not know what to do with the molestation and the rape. My parents did not know. And when we finally put a name to the pain, called trauma, it just all made sense. And so I think it's a tool that's effective that a lot of people should really think about using when they are working with kids. 

Caila: I was going to say, I agree. And I think the difficulty part is with some of the kids, they, the word I hear a lot is silly. So they think it's silly even trying to bring up these feelings or these emotions and that they feel weird even talking about it. But how I like to go ahead and use it with some of my kids is the idea about rose colored glasses or a puzzle, like everything seemed, like it was normal. Everything seemed like it was good. And then they got a little bit older and they recognize that some of these things don't feel good. It doesn't make sense. And now they're left with the feelings with some of the kids I worked with in teenagers, they'd been in those spaces where now it's not silly, now the feelings are more persistent, now they have these thoughts, and it's awkward having these conversations, but when we're going through these ACEs, and we're taking off these rose colored glasses, that's when they're starting to see, like, all of these things connect. This is why I feel this way, but the big part about it is making it a destigmatized conversation. So even yesterday when I was working with one of my teenagers,  that's where that word came up again. It's silly. Sometimes I get so stressed out when I get here and the big part about it is just making it so that it doesn't have to be this big daunting conversation but talking about things like safety planning and resources and that even though because a big part when I think about social determinants of health is this accessibility. So even my clients that are in services. If they don't have the mental space to even be in services, they have to work because they need to go and provide for the kids. We can't get anywhere because it can't be in session. Being able to go ahead and have these conversations where it doesn't have to be something big and daunting, and they can see which I want to phrase it, see what's realistic within their setting to make sure that they get access to the help so that it doesn't become bigger is the big part. So again, summing up having these open conversations, recognizing taking off these rose colored glasses and making sure that they feel like they have they're comfortable to walk through that door and highlight some of these things. Thanks.  

Addie: One last thing I'll add is back to the social determinants of health. If you've heard me talk before, I'm always a big proponent of housing is health care. And we are seeing these huge shifts in insurance companies. Finally, recognizing how the housing as health care you have a safe place to store a cool, dry place to store your meds. If you go and have surgery, or you have any kind of just small wound, you have a place where you can properly recover. When you look at people experiencing homelessness who go into the E.R. it might start with a bug bite that gets infected. And then it grows into this really big medical issue because they just don't have a safe, dry, secure place to take care of it. So I think that's another big takeaway is how do we all know that housing is important. But we've got to put the dollars in the funding behind it in these different sectors to say this is part of health care. And it's not just going to your primary health and getting your regular checkup once a year 

Tia: For those of us who may not know, can someone. Determinants of health includes 

Casey: Tia. I believe that you're your phone cut out there. Can you say that question again? Please? My friend. 

Tia: I was asking for someone to explain what the social determinants of health include. Can you hear me? 

Caila: Yeah, from my recollection of it, it includes health, literacy, transportation, language, various treatment in the healthcare system. How distrust in that healthcare system. Insurance  underinsured accessibility diversity amongst help mental health providers and then the effectiveness of the treatment. Again, this all produces or comes down to that big place about stigma. So even going into healthcare settings to get treatment. If they're facing a lot of these barriers, it is going to produce a lower likelihood of success and help mental treatment and effective care in those spaces as well.

Tonja: And it's fine to access all that. That causes a lot of trauma and anxiety on anyone. And we know that there's different forms of mental health. You have mental health, you have mental illness. And so mental health is what we all experience because we all have this big, beautiful thing behind between our ears, our brain. And just, imagine, look, that's all that's, you want to wake up every day. You want to, do better and be better, but they're those social determinants that are not, you don't have access to, you don't have privy to. And so talking about putting anybody in a place of hopelessness and despair. Or, you know that you have to feed your kids or your family and there's no grocery stores or you don't have access to good health care. If you are having any kind of physical challenge, because let me be clear mental health is health, it's not just from the neck down, or it's from here all the way down to the sole of our feet. And so that will put anybody, in a space of feeling hopelessness, depression, anxiety and things of that nature. But, if that person experienced that trauma back to back the research shows that it begins to mess with someone's brain and we talk about a lot of things when it comes to poverty and things that are happening in communities that are unserved. Like crime which self regulation and things of that nature. So again, if we really want people to strive, we really have to address it, from a holistic approach, and we have to make sure that they have that access to the things that they need. So they can thrive and be the best version of themselves. Again, I'll go back to my flower. There's no way that my plant is going to do well if the soil does not have what it needs to help it grow.  

Tia: We have a question in a chat from Morgan Udoh. How do we increase comfort and normalcy in our spirits of influence around mental health support? Where is the data around when we should start combos around mental health and are there any resources on how to talk about it as a lay person?

Addie: Morgan, I love that question. One of the easiest things to do is start with yourself. I think you and Casey gave us beautiful examples this morning of talking about themselves. So we go out. You go out to dinner, you're talking with friends at, whatever athletic event and it's easy to talk about. Oh, I've got high blood pressure or I have this medical thing or what not. It's not often that we're talking about this other stuff that's going on, or even something that's happening in your family. For example, my son right now is in therapy. If you met him you wouldn't think why on earth with this sweet child to be in therapy. But you have no idea the impact that I have made by just acknowledging that. And then people immediately say, why would he be in therapy for this reason? Maybe my child should be in therapy. Maybe that might help our family. So I think if nothing else a very simple answer would just be to find that comfort level within yourself. You are so powerful in just sharing your own story.

Tonja: Also according to the APA, which is the American Psychiatric Association, they're saying that as early as five years old, that they're seeing an uptick in that. And again, we know that mental health can be something that is brought on about. Social ills are things in the house, but then sometimes it's also in the brain. Some people are prone to anxiety. Maybe your mom had it, your dad had it, the family I was talking about, that's something that runs to their family, just like high blood pressure or anything else. Early is that if there's a need for it and taking people to folks who are licensed, trained professionals. It's great that we want to take them to the youth pastor and all that stuff. That's great. But no. Because if your kid was having an issue with their glasses, you would take them to our, to see an eye doctor. So taking them to see a licensed trained professional who specializes in youth and children, we have to do that. It's like taking them to the, what is the pediatric doctor? It should be the same thing. And look, we have to address the stigma around it. If we don't normalize the conversation, like we've been talking about, then, it's going to stay under the rug. It's going to stay swept away, or people are going to think, if I say I'm having this kind of challenge, I'm crazy. I'm not crazy. My brain is just broken, I have a chemical imbalance. And so we have to have these conversations inside our house first, like Addie said, charity begins at home and spreads abroad. And I think when we do that, we normalize it. Then it will make people more open to seek help.  

Tia: You are so spot on where some people I know, like living amongst the Bible belt the first thing that we always hear is people like, you need to go to church and need to pray. And not saying that a spirituality or religion is not a prescription in terms of your faith, but being able to. talk about it openly and not be a taboo subject when you are having some challenges, which are mental. What are some ways? Okay. So if you've been in a spirit of always functioning in chaos that you're not able to identify when you're not well, because it's normal. To you, what are some ways that we, as other people can without antagonizing or belittling, how can we as an individual support a friend or family member that are displaying signs of depression or other challenges? 

Addie: I think one thing, there's a lot of fear, if we're talking about suicide, let's say if we go all the way to that. That if you mention, are you thinking about hurting yourself? Are you having any of those thoughts that actually leads to someone? Oh, I introduced that idea to them. That is not true. In fact, sometimes it opens up the door because that's a really hard thing to share. So I think it's just asking, feeling the waters, but making it a really safe space. It might even start again with you and sharing some story that you have, or some experience and then. Again, it opens that door to that other person and I think again, just saying how much I love you. I really care about you. These are some things that I've noticed. Are you okay? And how can I be here to support you? And continuing to check in with those folks and not letting it go, you can go too far, but letting them know you're there. It's a no judgment zone. 

Tonja: Yeah. And then, lead with love and no judgment and then be real for real. At the end of the day, so many times I hear people say I saw the signs. If you saw the signs, then say something and, and just say it with love and respect, again, being a person who has a mental health diagnosis, my friends know. I have five friends, everybody. Five friends know if something, if my diagnosis escalates, they all know what to do, but I also had to sit down and have a conversation with them. I had to be true to myself. I had to do it. And then I had to tell them here are some of the things that. If you see, I'm probably not in a good space because I can fake it like I can fake it for real. And just asking the person, look Frank Campbell was one of the top suicidologists in the country. He's right here in Baton Rouge. And he always said, Tonja, just tell people if they don't know what to say, ask these two questions, ask a person, where does it hurt and how can I help? And a lot of times people who are the best version themselves can tell you this is what's going on. This is how you can do, this is what you can do to help. And then listen, and look, sometimes you're not going to have all the answers. Sometimes you just have to sit there with people or just ask them, can I get you some chicken? It's simple things like that. And then also knowing, if that friend is in a space that's not good, and ask them, from a 1 to 10, if it's at a 9 or 8, then, what are the local resources, and I'll go back to 988 because at the end of the day, we can talk to people about the challenges they might be having. But we have to have the resources and know where they are to connect into them ASAP because they life might depend on it.  

Caila: I like to add on to Ms. Tonja and Ms. Addie working with the kids that I work with, I always try to open it up if this is a open or a closed conversation and depending on their answer, I'll highlight things that I'm seeing and asking what they need because it's not just about what I want for them in that moment, but what they're feeling and comfortable to do in that space. I gave the example of, they just want some food and somebody to just listen to as they vent. That's what we're going to do in that session until they're ready to go ahead and move a little bit further. Being in that space as a clinician, I may try to go ahead and get a little bit further depending on that severity on the scale, like we're seven and higher. Yeah we might have to bring mom in this conversation. We might have to go ahead and bring the guardian in, but try to go ahead and make sure that they feel safe. They feel comfortable that they still have some autonomy over things.  

Tia: And that's super important. So with 988, it's designed for all ages. But I was curious to know, is there a specific platform accessible just for teens? 

Tonja: Yeah, you have the Jed Foundation, you have most like APA, NAMI, Mental Health America, all of them have spaces just for teens. I said Jed Foundation because they do a lot around, teens, but even, and a lot of those, affiliates are here in East Baton Rouge Parish and even you have school based social workers, you have folks like, Ms. Palmer, all you have to do is just go to Psychology Today and Google put in your zip code. And, they'll tell you who those child psychologists are. There are places like that where you can go online. And like I said, they're national organizations, but they have local affiliates right here.  

Addie: Thank you for that. I see about 988 just to highlight because we think about it as just a phone number, so to speak, but it does have the ability for text and chat, which might be more applicable to certain people who are not yet ready to talk to someone. And for that younger group, maybe more willing to text, because that's typically what they're doing more these days. So they are trying to think about all of those things and the comfort level that people might have.  

Tia: Thank you. I just entered a poll into the chat. Just curious to see  of those of us that's on the call if we received any type of therapy or counseling in our youth. I know growing up in my household so in 2000, I lost a sister to by suicide. And one of the biggest things was, I remember we didn't talk about it because If we went to school and told a counselor or a teacher the things that were going in at home, it was very likely that CPS was going to come in and take the kids, right? When we're thinking about the youth and young adults in their willingness or creating spaces for them to be open without the fear of being removed from their home or the parent wanting the assistance, but not wanting to be forthcoming about some of the struggles that they're having. What are some ways that we can have a safe dialogue and to ensure that we're here to help and not to cause any more trauma, if that makes sense. 

Caila: I'd say sometimes that's a little tricky depending on what the stances on mental health and the stigma around it. Right now, what I'm facing with a family is that they we had a couple of good sessions and then one of the, one of the children, one of my clients commented that they are experiencing some type of abuse. So that, that had to get reported, but they, the family clamped up. So even though we made, I made sure it was an open dialogue where everybody felt comfortable to put in their piece or share what was going on,  it's still, what's going to happen now. So in that space, I'm still reaching out. We're trying to go ahead and make sure that we can have open dialogue and have conversations about it. But a lot of times it's just going to depend on how much trust that, that unit or that family has with you and how much trust they're willing to go ahead and put in you. You're not gonna, in lack of better words, tear apart the family. And that's in that example there, they clammed up. They're not trying to, and they want to keep it insular. In other cases they're willing to go ahead and work with it and trying to go ahead and get to a common goal. And I think that's the important part. Especially when parents are bringing their children in for counseling, I like to make sure that everybody, or how I typically open it up is who set this up. So is this the child asking for services or the parents are noticing something? And if it's the parents noticing something, I'm trying to get their perspective on what would be, what's a good space for maintenance for them where would we be able to say that we hit our goal that they can do this on their own. From there, that's where it's going to be like a lot of incongruence or challenges trying to go ahead and make sure that. The client's needs are getting met, but that the parents aren't clamming up to. So it's a big trust game and trying to go ahead and make sure that everybody's still on the same page with each other, because when they're feeling attacked or, The light is on them and all of their secrets are coming to the surface. It's really hard to stay in it. They want to, they go into protection mode, but if. The big thing is just trying to gather or gain trust with them and making sure that they feel comfortable that we are still on the same page with each other. We want to go ahead and make sure that client gets served that client gets to their healthy space. 

Tonja: And then other things  to make people aware of, even if you're a family member, you have kids in school, particularly East Baton Rouge Parish, most schools, they have a school based, social worker or therapist there. But here's the deal. And a lot of people go they need more. We'll probably do. But a lot of them, their caseload is not is not a lot because going back to what Miss Palmer said, if a kid is in school, and they're seeing some kind of challenges with that kid because of their age, they just can't go and talk to them. They have to get their parents to sign off. And a lot of times, and this is what they told me, they were saying that parents were not signing off because they were scared that their child was going to say something that maybe flag. Another organizations to come in and, maybe, not scrutinized, but, maybe, ask some questions in that family. So a lot of them say no, a teacher can say I think your kid would benefit from seeing X, Y, Z, clinician or social worker while they're here at school and the parent will say no. Because they think that kid is going to tell too much, which then can be another challenge. 

Tia: What goes on in my house stays on in my house before we move on. I want to do. I do want to give acknowledgement to our other guest speaker. Dr. Christianne Ricard if you don't mind coming off of mute and just introducing yourself. And I have a question for you. If you're open.  

Dr. Christianne Ricard: Absolutely. Good morning. Good morning. I do apologize for being late. I didn't have wifi where I was. But yes, I'm Dr. Christianne Ricard, licensed clinical mental health therapist here in Baton Rouge, Louisiana muscle mental health professional in East Baton Rouge Parish school. So everything that time just said is true. We only get 20-30 people on the case load and just had that happen yesterday. 15 year old is now pregnant and she's, her mom is not signing off on the services as a way of punishing her, for not, for getting pregnant. And now she's declining services. But back to me I'm also a mindset coach and what else? What else would be important? So yeah that's basically what I do. Mental health professional for East Baton Rouge prayer schools and clinical private practice.  

Tia: So with you working in the school system, and this question can be open to anyone who's servicing children, when you are  noticing  that a child may be experiencing some type of trauma and you want to offer services outside of the school,  how often is it being introduced for family therapy versus individual therapy? 

Dr. Ricard: Say that one more time on that last part. 

Tia: How often are we offering it to be a family centered therapy style or just individual?

Dr. Ricard: For the student is in my opinion, if a child has trauma, the mama probably has trauma. It's always going to be a family systemic issue. And so I do it personally because I know whatever work I do with that child, if they're going back into a toxic environment, it's going to undo it. So I always ask the parents, Hey, let me get your referral. To a counselor, I said, are you open to going to counseling, but not everyone has a multi family systemic approach, but I always take that approach, whether it's substance abuse, whether it's mental health, all of this going to have a family dynamic issue around it. And so just working with a teenager or a kid, there's only so much you can do without working with the family, because the environment is what's usually causing most of the problems. It's really up to the clinician. To me, it's every clinician, they don't see things the same, but I always see through the lens of family dynamics. 

Caila: I was gonna say, I agree. I don't work inside the school setting. I work in two community mental health settings and one private practice, but I do try to take a developmental and family approach from working with clients. Especially when I want people I see in person with minors, I try to incorporate the family within their treatment plan and then try to update it so that it's a part of their treatment plan. I like to specifically listen out for the dynamics that are there, because just as you mentioned, if the client is telling me about this trauma, there's more likely trauma with higher up within that family dynamic as well. That stems past just the mom, but generational and that's something that I've seen with some of my clients too. That is not just her and her mom, it's her and her mom and her grandmother and the aunts and the cousins. As many people as I can bring in those sessions, if depending and again, it's from. What the client is comfortable with, that's where we're going to start to go ahead and work with. And again, I approach it from that open or closed conversation to highlight what I'm saying. And if they see it too, and what we want to do about it.

Addie: I have everyone to think about in these situations. I think the 1st thing is to think about when you're going to have this conversation, how would you want someone to talk with you about it? And recognizing, I think it, for those of us that have children, we've all been there where your kid goes and says something ridiculous. Like mom said the F word or mom, I had my parent pick up my child and she told her that mom didn't feed me breakfast this morning and just, those are like, really things small things that lead to a sometimes a level of embarrassment, even just for that imagine if it was far worse than what's going on in the household. So I think if we can think about how you might want to be approached, have empathy in those situations, it can be something that would help you in addressing these things with others, even if you aren't a mental health professional, but maybe want to try to get somebody connected to resources.

Tia: I want to throw some stats out there. Last year, there were 289 related overdose deaths and as of last night, 130 deaths for fatal overdoses with that number still pending. 46 deaths by suicide, which was the same number in 2022. What are your thoughts around overdose by death by overdose as well as a suicide in this particular parish?

Tonja: Oh, okay. So here we go. So first of all, addiction is something that we've been working on for years, probably the past 25 years. And so when I saw the trend of doctor shopping, I brought that to the attention of a lot of our community leaders and we address that. That was actually some legislation on a book on the books that was not being forced. So once that was forced, then people doctor shopping was not a thing. And then, of course, we know that the opioid epidemic, we know all about that. But then fast forward to, about, five years ago, because I always follow the trends. And we knew that it was going to happen eventually here in East Baton Rouge parish. And look, we're not the only city that has these challenges. I travel all across the country and it's the same. And I'm gonna be honest. We go back to stigma. We go back, I guess people think that when a person uses drugs, they're just an addict, not realizing that it's two things. It's a disease. It is a disease. There's science to prove that, but also a disease, which we can correlate back to mental health. A disease meaning, what is the disease inside that person would make them want to risk their life to use. I was that person, but one of the things, I'm not going to lie at first, it was hard getting people to say, Hey, look, we got an issue. We're going to have more people dying by drug overdoses then there are murders in our city and we have to address it. And it was like pulling teeth. And I think it's because of stigma and people think that when use it's a moral issue, but it's funny to me that, we say this, but when someone who's famous died, Oh, that's so sad, poor Whitney, poor, this person, somebody here, it's just another crack head. I was told by a friend of mine. Who, when they hear the monitor that goes off and when they say it's a murder, Oh, we gotta get that. We got to get a crew out to that. But when they realized it's a POD, Oh, that's just another crackhead. Are you kidding me? That's somebody's child. That's somebody's son who had hopes and dreams one day to do something, but brain, but addiction hijacked their brain. And I think that we have to, we have to address it more. Look, we've been working hard, since we've been doing when you're ready. The numbers don't lie. We're at 30, 31 percent decrease in drug overdoses. That's fatal and non-fatal because we have about eight peers. Who have lived experience, who go out every time there's a call with law enforcement, we go there and if that person is non-fatal, then we're like, Hey, look, we've been where you are, let us get you to treatment. We can take you to the bridge right now. 24 hours, 7 days a week. Thank God for that place. 24 hour stabilization center. No wrong door. You can get in 5 minutes. And if somebody is fatal. Then we're able to get them, talking about grief services, maybe it's somebody else in their family is using. And so even though that percentage is going down, we're excited, but we're not satisfied because we still have to be real about addiction. All the songs that we hear, some of my favorite songs, smooth as Tennessee whiskey. And the other one, I lose control. That's about addiction to a person. But then when it comes to about addiction. That people are having chemical, we just oh, that's just another crackhead. So we have to do better we're doing better, but we have to do better and then of course suicide is increasing in east Baton Rouge Parish alone. We've had an uptick. We have to address it. Normally, it did not look like people like me. It was more white men. Now. We're seeing that it's not it's across the board. You know the demographics are the same and so having conversations like this y'all and talking about it inside our house first  I think we can move the needle. 

Tia: Thank you for that. I'm actually trying to catch up in the chat. Perry, you can come off of mute and ask your question or give your input.

Perry Sholes: Good morning, everyone. I'm not a clinician. I run a nonprofit and that nonprofit helps college students with their transition from College to career. So we're involved with internships and job placement and all those things that help a young student of color with that pathway that many of them don't have an ecosystem around them for that support. So we provide that since I've been doing this work we have encountered several students that are dealing with things that's well beyond what our intent is as a nonprofit, which is the career part. So I just wanted to like 2 examples that 1, I spoke yesterday with a female student who's graduating. Her home situation is unstable, so she's graduating. We're having a conversation about what her career aspirations are, but she's having challenges about where she's going to live after college and should she go home after college or doesn't even know what to do from that. So it's really unstable and even though we have resources to try to maybe help her with the career path. It's all over the place because of the dynamic of what's happening at home. Secondarily, I have another young man we've talked about anxiety and posture syndrome. He's setting expectations about his career and sometimes that gets to be overwhelming. He's acknowledged that he wants some help. We've been trying to work on how to get him help. He has Medicaid and has been having challenges with finding a paid job and talk to a clinician. So those are 2, situations and there are several others where we are working with young Black and brown kids who come to us because they are ambitious and they want help with their career. And then, there are other things that's well beyond what we can do. We're really trying to figure out how do we connect with some organization that can help us in these types of situations. So this conversation this morning is like really close to heart because we can't get them and as you, I'm talking to the choir here to their level of self actualization and performance if we can't help them with some of the mental health challenges. So it's a real thing, even at the college level. The kids have been faking it for a long time, pushing through a lot of challenges to even get them to college and completing it. So I just wanted to throw that out. 

Tia: Thank you for that, Mr. Sholes, which leads me to my next question. And those of our partners who are providing direct services whether it's mental health or substance abuse assistance or providing services for the homeless population,  what are some ways that partnering organizations can better support you? How, if you need connections, like what, how do you see our ecosystem working to support the work that you do to make sure that you are connected with the other organizations? Or not even asking the question for those of you who are on the call who are able to join in collaboration with Mr. Sholes or other organizations, please drop your information in the chat.

Tonja: I think having conversations like this is great and, collaborations I know the the mayor's office through healthy B.R. There's some resources that they have, sharing out because at the end of the day, mental health is not cookie cutter. It is not cookie cutter. One size does not fit all and so you're going to have people who, maybe, prefer to go to a female. I know with me, I wanted to go to a female therapist. I wasn't comfortable going to a man. Some people want to go to a black therapist, some people want to go to a therapist that maybe specializes in EMDR. So I think that, when we have conversations like this, that we share our information, because as I'm looking on the call right now, there's a lot of folks who are doing this work that, that, we can keep that information. Look, I think any organization that work in a nonprofit or community based setting should always have in their toolkit, good resources when it comes to mental health and substance use disorder and having conversations like this. I can't say how. It's needed enough. I know that Dr. Ricard is doing an event in a few weeks and she's having a lot of different, community, organizations there together. I think that's how we do it. And then take those resources to the people 'cause at the end of the day, we think they're gonna come to us. Not gonna happen. Addie, we've done some stuff together where we brought everybody together collectively and the sharing out empowered everybody, not just the person who was going who might be happy to challenge himself, but for all of us in the room, because we know that we cannot do 1 thing, we might do 1 thing. But that not be my lane. But then we bring people together and then share out that information. Then it put more tools in my toolbox that I know if someone's coming to me. I can have them call Ms. Palmer, I can have them call Addie or Dr. Ricard. So those are the kind of things that I think that, coming together and aligning ourselves will help us to help what we do and also help people in our community. And Casey, you've always done that. It would be the same mode of operation when it comes to mental health and substance use disorder.  

Addie: One thing that I'll give, cause people always call and say, this is my situation. I'm looking for help. And it's not always this easy, but sometimes a good place to start is, do you have insurance, because a lot of times people do, even if it's Medicaid, Medicare. Call your insurance provider. There are so many resources through our insurance providers that you don't even know about whether that might even be one of them, the Medicaid providers gives like 250 dollars towards housing, a month, or it might be that they will pay for feminine products, hygiene products. So it almost helps you narrow down a little bit because if we're looking at things that you know, are hopefully not going to be at a cost to the person, it's a really good start. And a lot of insurance companies also have internal case management, where they become the person who's going to be coordinating that care or reaching out and finding those resources.

Tia: Thank you for that. As we approach time, I firstly want to say thank you to all of our panelists today and providing us with much needed insight and support. I do want to ask either Morgan or Dr Ricard to just lead us in a moment of some breath work to just decompress because this was a heavy topic and just want to allow us to have space in our hearts and our minds to continue out our day as we keep in remembrance of those who are battling with suicide ideations, those who've lost their lives to suicide and those who are still in the struggle to just be a better individual. So Dr. Ricard or Morgan, y'all can rock, paper, scissors, but go ahead.

Morgan: I'm obviously going to defer to the actual licensed provider, but happy to lead a quick just grounding moment that I do with the kids, if that's okay. Awesome. Okay. Then, before we wrap up, let's just take a couple minutes to center ourselves with some deep breathing. So I'm just going to invite all of you on the call wherever you are sitting comfortably in your chair, in your house, wherever, to make sure that your feet are flat on the ground  and have your hands resting gently in your lap. Take a moment if you feel comfortable to do so to close your eyes or just soften your gaze. Then take a slow, deep breath in through your nose,  letting your belly expand,  your chest pull away from where you're sitting, and then exhale slowly and softly through your mouth, releasing any tension you might be holding. Let's do that again. Breathe in deeply. Imagine you're filling up with calm and ease and then exhale, letting go of any of the lingering heaviness from today's conversation. Let's go ahead and do that one more time. With each breath in, feel yourself becoming more grounded. Feel your toes on the ground, the heels, the balls of your feet. Feel where your knees are, where your thighs, where is your stomach.  Feel your shoulders. Their tips, let them down,  feel your arms, feel your hand, release your neck. And when you're ready,  gently open your eyes bringing the sense of calm with you as we transition back. Thank y'all. 

Tia: Thank you, Morgan. That was beautiful. And a great way to bring community together. Speaking of community Morgan, you have the floor now if you want to take this time or if you want to wait, that's okay. But now it's the moment for community announcements for this week. Anybody that has anything going on, please let us know.

Dr. Ricard: I have something on Sunday this coming Sunday, which is September the 8th Tonja already mentioned it. And also back to I think it was Mr. Perry talks about the Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And so the point of this event is to meet those needs to bring the person to self actualization. So they don't just need mental health. Sometimes you can't do mental health work until you meet. They have educational deficits, or they need, Housing. So we are going to bring all of those things there and give me one second. Yeah, we are going to have that event from 1 to 5 on Sunday. And it's a community event. So if you have anyone that could benefit, please bring them out so that they can connect with mental health clinicians and also BRCC 211 and so many different places that I didn't even know about that offers a lot of resources to families to meet those crisis needs. 

Tia: Thank you so much. I don't know if I missed Mr. Bidwell this morning. But the mayor's office is just to remind everybody about connecting East banner, which the neighborhood convention event that is happening on September, 14 at the canes river center from 9 am to 3: 15. I'll go ahead and drop that flyer along with Dr cars fire in the chat. If anyone has any other community announcements now is the time, or you can drop it in the chat. 

Tonja: Yeah, on Sunday, we're declaring a national 988 day. It's been over two years that we started 988. And SAMHSA and Vibrant, we're coming together to promote 988. Look at the end of the day, we need to let people know that there's a call for help with connections to hope that they can call, chat or text 24 hours, seven days a week, there's a license. I'm sorry, a trained, caring, compassionate person will, walk them through their crisis to get them to the next level of care if that's what's needed. So that's happening 988 that's happening on Sunday. And then this week we're going to be doing a launching of 988 all across the city, where you'll see signs all across the city. That'll be permanent signs that people will know about the number 988. because look at the end of the day. 988 is just not helping people in their time of need when it comes to crisis, but also it's differing people from. Calling 911 when they are having a mental health crisis. We know that it's not been favorable in the last year when a person who's having a mental health diagnosis interface with law enforcement, they're not, subject matter experts are trained to  deescalate when it comes to mental health, some of them are, but now, people need to know that there's another number that they can call that can help decrease in a lot of, unnecessary deaths and people going into the jail and going to get the help that they need. That's going to be great, look for that social media banner and just share it out. So people will know that there's another resource out there, a call for help with connections to hope. And that's Sunday.  

Tia: Thank you so much Mrs. Myles. Marcela, you have the floor, Marcela. Okay. I'm not sure if she's having connection activity issues.  

Marcela Hernandez: So I just wanted to invite all of you guys, our partners and all of the organizations. If you want to come and participate on our Hispanic heritage event. This year we're going to be celebrating this day on September the 22nd from 12 to 8pm at the Jambalaya Park located in Gonzalez.  We're going to have community partners. We're going to have for profit, non profit organizations, and business. We're going to have country displays, music, and much more. And I just, I'm going to put the registration link on the chat in case you guys want to come. This is a great opportunity to interact with a community that is oftentimes not included in this conversations, and it's just an excellent opportunity for you to really outreach those individuals that are left behind. I'm putting it in the chat and just like I said, this is going to be on September the 22nd from 12 to 8pm.  Thank you so much. Have a great day.  

Tia: Thank you. Thank you.  Any other community announcements? All right. And although I put it in the chat, I do just want to give acknowledgement to our partners at BRCC. September 19th, they'll be hosting a community leadership summit. Although all of us who are in community can benefit from some additional leadership training and I implore everyone to scan that QR code and register if you have the time to do the Love Heal Clinic is also going to be hosting another event. I can't see who posted it, but if you can come off of mute or not just talk a little bit about that event that's going to be in.  

Tanzel Montgomery: Hi, this is Tanzel with Louisiana Healthcare Connections. So we are one of the we are the signature sponsor for Love Heal's free clinics. They are hosting another clinic here in Baton Rouge. It's going to be on October the 26th, 6 to 6. It is a free clinic. Dental medical, vision. Clinic. Everything is absolutely free. The farm pharmacy prescriptions to the community. They will be, they should be sending out something. It may have gone out for volunteers, but Donna Collins Lewis and Nicole are basically the organizers of that clinic here in, in the Baton Rouge area. We went throughout the state a couple of months back. And so we'll have another 1 here. There were some issues at the 1 that we had here in June. Initially, that was at Southern University. The equipment had not made it in time from the original or from the love heels original organizers. And they wanted to do it again. So it'll be a free clinic and just be on the lookout for any information because they will need volunteers. For registration as well as by clinical volunteers.  

Casey: I just want to jump in real quick. What's up, Tanzel? Hey, can you see me? How are you doing?

Tanzel: Alright, I'm doing well. Thank you. Glad I was able to join today. I'm always so busy. 

Casey: Yeah, you are. You are busy. Hey, thank you for sharing. Thanks for sharing that resource and thanks for your support of this work. I just want to make sure and lift up that Tanzel behind the scenes. I said she's helped throw some resources  into our community and a lot of the work that OneRouge does. So just want to lift it up. Thank you, Tanzel. And yeah, and I also just as on a personal note, thank you to our speakers today. I can't imagine that I'm the only person that feels that this was a conversation that we needed in our community today.  And I just sometimes you reflect and you notice those introspective moments or those important moments, but it feels like I see it in the moment. There's a lot of leaders on this organization that work with a lot of people in the community on this call. And I truly do feel that all helped contribute to moving that needle that several of y'all spoke today. This is heavy work. Y'all are, y'all are, Warriors and carriers of joy. But may I say besides thank you. I hope that y'all get a little bit of healing this weekend. And I said, heal the healers, right? And I said, I wish that upon you wish that for all of you. And it was really cool to connect with the folks I didn't know before and see some old friends today. So on behalf of One Rouge, thank you to our speakers today. And Tia, thank you for curating a really powerful moment today and everybody that contributed in the chat. But thank y'all.  

Tia: Thank you. So as we wrap up, just want to give you guys a little heads up next week. We'll be talking education. There's some changes in FASFA and we'll also be talking dual enrollment for our parents and organizers that are helping our teens and young adults continue their education. And then following that, starting on September 15th is Hispanic heritage awareness month. So we will also curate space and time. From our Hispanic leaders within the community. Thank you all so much for joining the One Rouge Call, and we will see y'all next Friday.  

Casey: And on behalf of Fletcher, go Saints. 

Tia: I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan over here. 

Casey: Hey, where's my mute button? I think I have. I think I can override. I'm talking. I'm calling you right now. I'm on the line from Dallas right now. 

Tia: Last time you turned my entire camera off.

Casey: Anyway, I don't really care that much, but it's just fun to talk shit. It's just fun. Yeah, it's just fun. All right, everybody. Have a beautiful Friday. See y'all next week. I see you, Tia. 

Chat

Links

Community Announcements