Exploring and Advancing Efforts for Developing a Black Youth Suicide Community Building Model

Background

The urgent and immediate need for Black youth suicide research and intervention strategies has been echoed by national organizations including the National Institutes of Mental Health and Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) (CBC, 2019; Gordon, 2020). Suicide has become the second leading cause of death for Black youth ages 10-14 and the third leading cause of death for Black youth ages 15-19 (Gordon, 2020). Disappointedly, for the past few decades, there has been and continues to be a paucity of research on Black youth suicide despite the increasing rates (CBC, 2019). The purpose of this study is to explore and advance efforts for developing a community-building model aimed at increasing the capacity for Black youth suicide research and practice interventions to bolster Black mental health and wellness.

Methods

This study utilized a qualitative community autoethnography method (Stringer, 1997) to gather data on the experiences of two tenure-track researchers who worked collaboratively to establish the Mental Health Research and Practice Division (MHRPD). MHRPD is a community-building model focused on Black mental health, wellness, and suicide prevention/intervention. The researchers represent social work units in two public universities in North Carolina, one Historically Black College and University (HBCU) and one Predominantly White Institution (PWI). North Carolina has reportedly higher rates of suicidality among Black youth than national rates (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020). Data was collected through reflexive and dialogical storytelling, a method for the creation of autoethnographies that supports intersubjective agreement and disagreement and identification of connections within the stories (Toyosaki et al., 2009).

Results

Results from this study yielded four primary content themes: 1) the collaboration between researchers at an HBCU and PWI is integral for building an infrastructure for researching racialized and minoritized populations; 2) building trust helps to increase capacity for collaboration with community partners; 3) culturally-adapted and intentional spaces are critical for commitment and engagement; 4) mentorship of undergraduate and graduate students is necessary to build the pipeline of researchers to support Black mental health and wellness; 5) a collective effort is critical to prioritizing Black youth suicide locally and statewide.

Conclusions/Implications

These findings inform the community-building process for researchers and assist with increasing capacity. These collective efforts have resulted in the creation of the MHRPD as a hub for students, scholars, and practitioners to design, implement, and advance mental health research and practices. This model has been successful in the production of five Black mental health and wellness research briefs co-authored by students and faculty, 15 community partnerships have been fostered, and 11 students (bachelor, master, doctoral) from five universities joined the interdisciplinary practice and research team. The MHRPD has been supported in leading the development of a statewide Black youth suicide report and is seeking funding to launch an action research project for suicide prevention and intervention programs.