Breaking Silences in the Model Minority (Increasing Mental Health and Decreasing Stigma)

The so-called “model minority” is suffering - and dying - in silence. Despite being stereotyped as uniformly well-educated and successful, Asian American youths actually have higher rates of suicidal thoughts and attempts compared to most other racial/ethnic groups. They also have more internalizing symptoms, more peer victimization, and lower self-esteem compared to their White counterparts. Yet Asian Americans are among the least likely of all racial groups to utilize mental health services.
Our project tackles the problem of mental health and suicide in Chinese immigrant families. Although Asian American youth are often stereotyped as a uniformly well-educated and successful “model minority,” they are at high risk of depression and suicide. Parents often want to help, but face barriers including communication and language challenges, lack of awareness, and stigma of mental health issues and treatment. Our team will develop and disseminate culturally tailored, evidence-informed, and scalable programs and tools focused on mental health awareness, stigma reduction, and help-seeking that decrease suicide risk and directly empower Asian immigrant families to live their healthiest lives. Strategies at the individual level will focus on destigmatization and education. Strategies at the family level will focus on improving parenting skills and practices, including parent-child communication. Community-level strategies will focus on building youth/parent ambassador programs to further influence and promote the culture of change. While the primary focus of the current project is Chinese immigrant families, we anticipate that the programs, tools, and models developed can be adapted for other Asian and minority communities.
Website:
clinicalschola...
Twitter:
/ cspfellows
Resources:
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[@elizabethbucrek2087]

Thank you taking the initiative to create both a culturally sensitive and bilingual mental health curriculum to help empower your community! It is impressive to hear the reach that your project has already had so far in 50 states, and in other countries. If you are able to adapt your tool kit to include other Asian languages, what language would you add next? I look forward to seeing your tool kit and website when they launch next year!