Conference Learning Objectives

Black History Month Mental Health Conference 2027

 

Morning Breakout SESSIONS

 

pRESENTATION tOPIC: Social Justice as a Form of Healing

Presenter’s Name: Rev. Dr. Jaye Lynn Peabody Smith

Presentation Length: 1.5 Hours

Description

This workshop will address the impact of generational trauma and present-day social injustice on the mental health of Black Americans.  We will explore a life without healing, including how trauma shows up in both our bodies and our minds when healing is not obtained. Finally, we will discuss tangible steps for healing through acts of justice.

Learning Objectives

  1. Participants will identify symptoms of mental health distress.

  2. Participants will examine the impact of systematic injustice on communal well-being.

  3. Participants will gain holistic, culturally affirming responses and interventions for healing.

Presentation Topic: When Advocacy Becomes Exhausting: Black Fatigue, Disability, and the Mental Health Cost of Fighting for Access

Presenter's Name: Dr. Destiny Huff, LPC

Presentation Length: 1.5 Hours

Description

Black individuals and families are often required to repeatedly explain their needs, prove that harm has occurred, challenge biased interpretations, and fight for meaningful access within education, healthcare, employment, and mental health systems. For Black disabled and neurodivergent people, this burden is compounded by racism, ableism, adultification, masking, code-switching, and expectations of constant resilience.

 This session will explore how chronic advocacy and institutional resistance affect mental health, capacity, relationships, and trust. Participants will also learn culturally responsive and neuroaffirming approaches that reduce the advocacy burden and help create systems in which Black individuals do not have to become exhausted before their needs are recognized.

Learning Objectives

1. Identify how racism, ableism, adultification, masking, and repeated institutional resistance contribute to Black fatigue and advocacy-related burnout.

2. Recognize how advocacy exhaustion may present through shutdown, irritability, reduced capacity, avoidance, grief, distrust, or disengagement rather than a lack of motivation or participation.

3. Apply culturally responsive and neuroaffirming strategies that reduce the burden placed on Black disabled individuals and families when seeking support, accommodations, services, or access.

Presentation Topic: Welcome Home: Understanding Black Fatigue Through the Lens of Chronic Survival, Trauma, and Executive Function

Presenter's Name: Marcia Blane, LPC, CPCS, CHt, CCTS

Presentation Length: 1.5 Hours

Description

This presentation examines Black fatigue through the intersection of historical trauma, chronic stress, systemic inequities, and nervous system dysregulation. Rather than viewing rising rates of anxiety, depression, burnout, and ADHD diagnoses as isolated conditions, participants will explore how prolonged survival states can shape executive functioning, emotional regulation, and overall well-being. Drawing from neuroscience, trauma-informed care, and culturally responsive mental health practices, this session provides clinicians and helping professionals with practical tools to differentiate trauma-related adaptations from neurodevelopmental conditions while promoting sustainable pathways toward healing, regulation, and restoration.

Learning Objectives

1. Explain how chronic survival mode contributes to Black fatigue and mental health outcomes.

2. Differentiate similarities and differences between ADHD, trauma, and stress-related executive dysfunction.

3. Identify culturally responsive interventions that promote nervous system regulation, resilience, and long-term healing.

4. Apply trauma-informed, strengths-based strategies to reduce burnout and support restoration within Black communities

AFternoon breakout Sessions

 

Presentation Topic: The Weight We Carry: Healing Intergenerational Trauma and Building Emotional Resilience in Black Communities

Presenter Name: Kimberly Ward, LICSW, LCSW-C, LCSW, RPT

Presentation Length: 2 Hours

Description

Trauma is not always defined by a single event. For many Black individuals and families, emotional pain may be rooted in generations of adversity, systemic inequities, racial stress, community violence, family dynamics, and unspoken narratives that continue to shape mental health today. Yet healing is possible.

This interactive presentation explores the impact of intergenerational trauma through a culturally responsive, trauma-informed, and strengths-based lens. Participants will examine how trauma is transmitted across generations, how it affects emotional regulation, relationships, parenting, identity, and physical health, and how clinicians and helping professionals can interrupt these cycles while fostering resilience.

Grounded in neuroscience, attachment theory, and evidence-based clinical interventions, this session provides practical strategies that professionals can immediately implement when working with Black children, adolescents, adults, and families. Emphasis will be placed on recognizing cultural strengths, promoting emotional safety, and creating healing-centered spaces that move beyond symptom management toward lasting transformation.

Learning Objectives:

1. Explain how intergenerational trauma influences emotional, behavioral, relational, and physical health across the lifespan within Black communities.

2. Identify at least three culturally responsive, trauma-informed interventions that promote emotional regulation, resilience, and healing.

3. Apply neuroscience-informed strategies to help clients recognize trauma responses, strengthen protective factors, and interrupt generational cycles of adversity.

Presentation Topic: Strong, Black, and Tired: When Maternal Survival Is Mistaken for Maternal Wellness

Presenter Name: Dr.Tatyana Kitchen, LMSW

Presentation Length: 2 Hours

DESCRIPTION

Black maternal mental health conversations often focus on disparities, risk factors, and adverse outcomes. Less attention is given to what happens when a Black mother appears to be functioning well despite experiencing significant emotional and psychological distress. Caring for an infant, returning to work, managing family responsibilities, attending appointments, and meeting everyday expectations may be interpreted as signs of wellness when they may instead reflect survival, necessity, or an expectation to remain strong.

This presentation examines the intersection of Black fatigue and maternal mental health by challenging the assumption that functioning is synonymous with wellness. It explores how racialized and gendered expectations of strength, resilience, caregiving, and self-reliance can shape the postpartum experiences of Black women and potentially influence whether distress is recognized, communicated, and addressed. Particular attention will be given to the ways clinical providers, families, workplaces, and communities may unintentionally reinforce expectations for Black mothers to recover quickly and continue functioning without adequate attention to their emotional needs.

Participants will be encouraged to move beyond asking whether a Black mother is "managing" and toward assessing whether she is emotionally well, adequately supported, and able to experience vulnerability without judgment. The presentation concludes with culturally responsive considerations for recognizing distress, strengthening support, and creating maternal mental health practices that make room for Black women to receive care rather than simply endure.

Learning Objectives

  1. Differentiate maternal functioning, resilience, survival, and psychological wellness within the context of Black maternal mental health.

  2. Identify how racialized and gendered expectations of strength, caregiving, and self-reliance may influence the recognition and expression of maternal mental health concerns among Black women.

  3. Examine how clinical, family, workplace, and community environments may unintentionally reinforce expectations that Black mothers continue functioning despite emotional or psychological distress.

  4. Apply culturally responsive strategies for assessing maternal wellness, recognizing less visible signs of distress, and supporting Black mothers beyond traditional expectations of resilience and strength

Presentation Topic: From Reaction to Response: A Four-Step Preparation Framework for Clients Under Sustained Pressure

Presenter Name: Travis Thompson, LPC, CPCS

Presentation Length: 2 Hours

Description

Clients navigating chronic social and systemic stress often arrive in session already in a reactive state, flooded, defensive, or shut down before the real work of therapy can begin. This session introduces a four-step preparation framework designed to move a client from reaction to a deliberate, agency-driven response, without requiring the external pressure itself to change first. The framework consists of the following: 1) Feel Reality: the client names what they are actually feeling, without shame, before problem-solving begins; 2) Name It: the client puts language to the specific stressor or pattern driving the reaction, separating what is actually happening from the assumptions layered on top of it; 3) Decide: the client weighs their options and chooses a course of action, whether that means holding their ground or reaching out for support, with both presented as equally valid rather than a binary of strength versus weakness; 4) Actively Defend: the client follows through on that decision and stands by it under continued pressure. This session covers the clinical rationale behind each step, common points of client resistance, and how to apply the framework in individual and family treatment settings.

Learning Objectives

  1. Participants will be able to walk a client through the four-step preparation sequence in session.

  2. Participants will be able to identify common points of client resistance at each step and apply at least one modification strategy to address it.

  3. Participants will be able to adapt the sequence for use in both individual and family treatment settings.

Presentation Topic: Afros, Ghettos, and Rainbows: Addressing Mental Health at the Intersection of Blackness & Queerness

Presenter Name: J. Tekulvē Flower de Jackson-Vann, LMFT

Presentation Length: 2 Hours

Description

According to the National Black Justice Collective, while Black LGBTQ+ individuals experience higher rates of depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress (PTSD), and substance use, they are also less likely to have access to culturally competent professional care. As a result, many Black LGBTQ+ individuals choose not to seek mental health treatment. Using his experience as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Black Queer man, Tekulve Flower de Jackson-Vann will share important information regarding the mental health crisis among Black LGBTQ+ clients, culturally informed clinical approaches for current mental health professionals working with Black LGBTQ+ clients, and insights into how the Black clinical community can better meet the needs of LGBTQ+ clients in the Black community.

Learning Objectives

1. Participants will be able to identify common mental health conditions experienced by Black LGBTQ+ clients across the lifespan and how those conditions contribute to clients’ experience of Black fatigue.

2. Participants will develop the ability to identify effective clinical interventions for working with Black LGBTQ+ clients experiencing Black fatigue.

3. Participants will be able to identify opportunities to engage in community-based efforts to increase access to culturally informed mental health services for Black LGBTQ+ clients experiencing Black fatigue.