Pilot program in Brooklyn Center to offer mental health therapy for those with racial trauma

When Kevin Dedner told his therapists about the racial trauma he experienced as a Black man, he often found they wouldn't believe him.

Visits to therapists left him "weighed down by the exhausting task of having to convince them of the importance of my experience in the world as a Black man," he recalled. "Imagine being in therapy … and the therapist is just looking at you in disbelief."

That changed when he started seeing a Black therapist who understood what he was going through, Dedner said in his book, "The Joy of the Disinherited."

The meeting inspired him to found Hurdle Health, a Washington D.C.-based provider of mental telehealth services that takes experiences such as racism into account to better care for clients. Dedner hired that therapist as the provider's first chief clinical officer.

"Our first clinical leader … was asking me questions which validated the story I was telling him," he said. "Our therapists are trained in a technique that acknowledges that they may not have the bank of experiences to relate completely to the client who's sitting in front of him."

Hurdle's latest initiative is a partnership with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota to apply that approach in Brooklyn Center — Minnesota's second-most racially diverse city, and the only Minnesota city with a Black mayor and city manager. Of the 30,000 people who call Brooklyn Center home, 31% are Black and 17% are Asian, according to the Census Bureau.

A Brooklyn Center police officer shot and killed Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, in April 2021. The city also has been heavily affected by COVID, with some communities of color experiencing the highest rates of cases and deaths.

But a lack of diversity and training among therapists leaves them unable to properly address this trauma.

Hurdle's therapists approach their clients knowing they might have different experiences, and ask them questions which make them feel heard, Dedner said.

Blue Cross is paying for the therapy sessions and Hurdle is providing therapists.

Brooklyn Center residents have long faced mental health challenges, said Deirdra Yarbro, director of Special Services at Brooklyn Center Community Schools, a program which works with community groups to help students access mental and medical health care and other services.

"There were mental health concerns across our community … prior to COVID, prior to George Floyd's murder, prior to Daunte Wright's murder, and all of those things just became exacerbated," Yarbro said.

Protests took place at the Brooklyn Center Police Department, which is one block from a high school, said Seth Ryan, director of community engagement at Brooklyn Center Community Schools. Many students had to evacuate their apartments because of tear gas.

During the year ending June 30, about a quarter of the school district's students visited a mental health provider, Ryan said. Forty-four of those students were new clients from the previous year.

Yarbro thinks the partnership will help existing mental health care professionals navigate the high demand for services.

"Minnesota, in the metro particularly, is very short on mental health practitioners," Yarbro said.

While teletherapy is helpful for residents who can't drive regularly, it still will be hard for those with limited Wi-Fi or no access to the internet.

Although it's been a year since the shooting of Wright and the subsequent protests, Brooklyn Center residents are still reeling, said LaToya Turk, interim manager of Brooklyn Center's Office of Community Prevention and Health and Safety.

"Images continue to play over and over in our minds, not even just the murder of Daunte, but so many of our Black and brown bodies across the country, that it's a constant re-trigger," Turk said.

Therapists at Hurdle go through cultural ethics training, which includes different scenarios, role playing, and learning about aspects of their clients' cultures, said Hurdle therapist Cedric Rashaw.

"You can't have a counseling approach to every person because everyone's experience, everyone's life view is different," Rashaw said. "Often when I meet with someone of a different culture, I want to learn from them. Before they even tell me why they're coming to therapy, I would say 'OK, tell me a little bit more who you are, your background,' so I can be educated as well."

The partnership will include therapists from a variety of backgrounds who reflect the demographics of Brooklyn Center, Dedner said.

Community organizers' requests for mental health care services helped persuade Blue Cross to get involved, said Bukata Hayes, Blue Cross' vice president of racial and health equity.

The program is a first for Blue Cross, and no other city was in the running, Hayes said.

He hopes the size of Brooklyn Center can allow Blue Cross to learn more about providing mental health care so it could enact similar programs in the future.

The program launched recently, and Blue Cross plans to continue it for five years. Brooklyn Center residents can sign up through an app or online portal. Participants provide an address to prove they are residents.

This story comes to you from Sahan Journal, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to covering Minnesota's immigrants and communities of color. Sign up for its free newsletter to receive stories in your inbox.