SPRINGFIELD — Making a difference as a nonprofit can be an uphill battle, but the Black Behavioral Health Network is continuing to provide culturally relevant care to the communities of color in Springfield.
Della Blake is the founder and the executive director of BBHN. She previously worked for the Western Massachusetts Recovery and Wellness Center under Sheriff Michael Ashe. There, she worked with inmates whose substance use disorders could have been contributing factors for criminal behavior.
She came across a study that indicated that Black and Latino people were less likely to finish treatment programs at the same rates as their white peers, partly due to a lack of representation among behavioral health professionals.
Seeing the need to address gaps and barriers in behavioral healthcare among Black, indigenous and people of color in the area, Blake founded BBHN in March 2019.
“There’s a lot of things culturally that the BIPOC community experience,” she said, citing stigma around asking for help with mental illness and a cultural distrust of the medical community.
In Massachusetts, startup nonprofits are required to have a registered agent. The agent helps the nonprofit manage finances and the legally required forms. The fledgling nonprofit sought help from Springfield Partners. “They’ve been such a big help. They’ve been very supportive,” Blake said.
Springfield Partners for Community Action Executive Director Paul Bailey explained, “We’re the official agent for the organization. We lend our fiscal abilities.” He added, “They’ve come quite a ways,” in the two years since BBHN began working with Springfield Partners. Springfield Partners serves in a similar capacity for five other non-profits in the area and has done so for many others in the past. Bailey and his team usually work with non-profits for three to five years before they are ready to handle their finances on their own.
Bailey said the mission of BBHN complements that of Springfield Partners, which has been serving low-income city residents since 1964. “There’s a correlation between mental health issues and low-income, which is the community we work with,” he said. Nationally, 11.5% of people live at or below the poverty level. Nationally, for the Black community, the percentage of those living at the poverty level jumps to just over 17%. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Springfield’s poverty rate is more than double the national rate, at 25.3%.
BBHN began by offering a life skills program for incarcerated men. Last year, it opened a program for incarcerated women, as well. So far, about 40 people have gone through the curriculum. Blake said she is most excited that several of the participants have expressed an interest in becoming peer mentors.
Among the programs BBHN runs are recovery coaching for people with substance abuse disorders; access services for housing and detox; a backpack distribution that provides essentials and naloxone, an overdose reversal medicine, to people in need and a 12-week program to work on adopting and sustaining behavioral changes. There is also grief counseling. Blake said she is hoping to create a grief support group specifically for people who have lost someone to opioids.
“I think [these services] are absolutely critical in the Black, African American, BIPOC community,” said Katrina Spicer, a licensed addiction clinician with BBHN. “Representation matters. When you can access services from people who look like you, it matters.”
Spicer said that providing “culturally relevant” mental health and substance abuse care for people in communities of color are BBHN’s “single point of focus. We’re not trying to be everything to everyone.” That said, she added, “If we positively impact the culture, we’ll positively impact Springfield.”
To learn more about BBHN, visit blackbehavioralhealthnetwork.com or call 866-462-2461.
