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Black and Latina/o Students Require Culturally Responsive Mental Health Services in their Schools
by Kyla Still and Dr. Benjamin M. Drury
Addressing the nuanced mental health needs of Black and Latina/o students in the United States involves navigating a variety of interconnected challenges. Black and Latina/o students we work with have shared feeling or perceiving or experiencing barriers seemingly at every turn in their life.
Navigating common social realities such as pumping gas, shopping for groceries, visiting the doctor, buying a home, and going to school is vastly more complicated for non-white people than white people.
Discrimination comes in a variety of forms ranging from systemic to institutional to individual and everything in between. Sociologist Dr. Elijah Anderson wrote about “white spaces” and talked about how anytime a non-white person enters a “white space” they are immediately met with suspicion.
Experiencing a social world where there exist spaces where you know that you are not going to be trusted, valued, and/or treated fairly is mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually exhausting. For Black and Latina/o students today who are still…
