Reimagine Black Youth Mental Health

Advisory Council

The Advisory Council was cultivated through individual stakeholder meetings, an initial public meeting with potential local system partners, and development of a draft charter; the council launches formally in January 2023. The council is comprised of individuals at various levels of leadership from the Hennepin County Public Health Department, City of Brooklyn Park, City of Brooklyn Center, Osseo Area schools, Brooklyn Center Community Schools, Anoka-Hennepin Schools, Robbinsdale Schools, North Hennepin Community College and Hennepin Technical College, and a range of community organizations including African Career Education & Resources, One 2 One Mentoring, and InTentions.

The Council also includes other key decisionmakers in the Black community such as parents, pastors, and most importantly, Black youth. They have spent most of the first year of this project building deep and wide relationships within the community to develop trust and respect in the community. Building community trust was an ESSENTIAL component of this project with the Black communities in Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center.

Black Youth Affinity Space

Although Black youth are actively participating in leadership spaces throughout this project, it became quickly apparent that it was essential and valuable for Black youth to have their own space. The Black Youth Space was launched in Spring 2022 to build community, explore identity and culture, and better understand mental health and wellbeing. The group meets every two weeks to build trust, relationships and shared experience with other Black people, and explore wellness. This youth space is critical for mobilizing and engaging Black youth who are taking on leadership roles in this initiative. One of the significant findings in this project was the need for this Black youth affinity space for young people to feel safe and heard.

State Resource Team

The State Resource teams provides the infrastructure to implement policies and practices that improve outcomes for Black youth mental health. MDH has established partnerships across the state enterprise that can help leverage additional resources, contacts, and research to support effective policy implementation, amplify and promote effective policies from the demonstration project, and support sustainability by incorporating aspects of the process into existing programs and providing vehicles for systematically scaling the policy implementation in other community settings.

The State Resource Team (SRT) is led and convened by MDH and includes the BBAY coordinator. MDH staff conducted 25 individual 1:1’s with various state partners to begin orientating them to the State Resource Team.

• Governor Walz’s Children’s Cabinet
• State Health Improvement Partnership (SHIP)
• Regional Equity Coordinators
• Suicide Prevention
• Minnesota School Based Health Centers (SBHC)
• Minnesota Department of Education
• Minnesota Office of Higher Education
• Minnesota Department of Human Services
• Center for Health Equity
• Minnesota Department of Public Safety
• Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
• Minnesota Association of Children’s Mental Health

Health in all policies approach  

Mental Health: a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community. – World Health Organization   

The health in all policies approach leverages the relationships between positive mental health and the many social factors that impact mental health, from education, parks, public recreation, to policing and more. These policy areas impact our health and mental health whether we are conscious of them or not. Ensuring policies enhance our mental well-being and elevate human dignity, respect, and growth; Black youth will have opportunities to better contribute to society and develop in a positive and healthy way. Policies that invest in the economic, social, and political environments will contribute to overall increased well-being for all.

Through this lens, the Advisory Council, in partnership with Black youth in the community, will identify and implement specific policies at the local level that are expected to have the greatest impact on BYMH.  Under the leadership of the Advisory Council, the community will develop a process to engage Black Youth in identifying a range of policies that play a role in improving BYMH.  

Initiative Goals

The Reimagine Black Youth Mental Health Initiative has three goals:

1. Improve Black youth mental health.
2. Design a process that includes Black youth and communities in policy development.
3. Implement a ‘mental health in all policies’ approach. 

Defeating the myths of racism and colorism

Understanding the context of racism. Common beliefs are embedded into the cultural knowledge of many communities. Many of these pernicious and harmful myths are designed to instill fear and distrust, while contradicting the reality for diverse communities.

Throughout this project, community and system partners have reinforced that addressing systemic racism will not disrupt the market economy, will not harm white people, and will not undue American society as we know it.   
Improving Black youth mental health will help enhance civil liberties for all, increase economic prosperity for everyone, and contribute to the increase in overall wellbeing for everyone. The great irony of racist ideas and systemic racism in Minnesota and in the U.S. is that it continues to undermine the legitimacy of democracy, capitalism, law and order, and prosperity for all.

By greater engagement in the political process and economic and social well-being for everyone, it will strengthen the overall system and allow for increased opportunity for people of every culture and ethnicity.

Mental well-being and racial justice

Mental well-being requires a sense of purpose and self-determination. To truly experience mental well-being, Black youth need to feel and have the power to shape their world and change their lives and conditions for the better. For many, historical trauma is a reality that disrupts a sense of purpose and power and continues to be part of lived experience and reality.

Systematic racism and generational structural inequities (social, economic, political, and environmental) result in poor health outcomes. These inequities have a greater influence on health outcomes than individual choices or one’s ability to access health care, and not all communities are impacted the same way. All people living in Minnesota when health disparities are reduced and racial equity is advanced.

Chronological activities and policies

As the State Resource Team started gathering, MDH highlighted the landscape of racial policies and the historical context that helped inform the process of identifying policies to improve Black youth mental health. 

Reconstruction (1865-1877)

• South’s first state-funded public-school systems, more equitable taxation, laws against racial discrimination in public transport and accommodations and ambitious economic development programs.
• Civil Rights Act of 1875

Policies challenging racial groups (1877-1957)

• Electoral disenfranchisement
• Economic subjugation of Black People

Civil Rights Era (1957-present)

• Civil Rights Act 1957
• Civil Rights Act 1964
• Civil Rights Act of 1968

Local Policy History 

• Interstate 94 - Rhondo community
• Earle Brown Heritage Center
• Racial covenants in housing, part of New Deal
• Recreation settings: Filling swimming holes with concrete
• Business Ownership in Minnesota in 2017
  • White: 80% of population, 95% are white owned businesses
  • Black: 6% of population, 1% are black owned businesses