CHICAGO -- The collective trauma of seeing 13-year-old Adam Toledo shot to death on police body camera footage in March 2021 was not a new sensation for young Black and brown men on the city’s West Side.
But this time, researchers were watching. Researchers who knew just how they felt.
“That’s the lived experience that these young people are dealing with,” said Claudio Rivera, a pediatric psychologist at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and an assistant professor of psychiatry at Northwestern University.
The research — presented recently at Lurie Children’s in the hopes of securing $20 million to foster youth-led strategies on community healing and bettering mental health in Chicago — was a collaborative effort between the hospital, Voices of Youth in Chicago Education and Communities United, Chicago’s survivor-led, grassroots, intergenerational, racial justice organization.
The two-year study prompted the creation of Ujima, a cohort of Black and brown men 21 years and younger, who based their work on the premise that, given their experiences, young men of color are best equipped to research their own community’s experience with mental health and make recommendations for effective change.
Trained on research ethics, the Ujima researchers conducted surveys, interviews and focus groups with peers about mental health. Their report found:
• Two-thirds of those surveyed said they face challenges with their mental health;
• Trauma is often normalized for young men of color;
• One in 4 surveyed said they “feel anxious, constantly worried, or extremely nervous” four days or more per week;
• Top systemic factors connected to mental health are schools, jobs, racism and poverty;
• Young men of color feel they are viewed by society through a lens of race and gender, and the stereotypes that come with that, rather than being viewed as whole people with contributions to give to the world around them.
Ujima, which takes its name from the Swahili word for collective work and responsibility, also made recommendations based on its research, which ranged from bringing more mental health professionals of color into the system; to turning abandoned buildings in Chicago into community centers where young people can partake in art, music and classes on topics such as coping mechanisms, leadership development and de-escalation tactics.
The data in the report will inform the 10-year holistic plan the grassroots organization and medical institution are developing with the help of a $1 million planning grant in 2021 from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Racial Equity 2030 Challenge.
If Chicago wins the next phase of the challenge, the plan could receive up to $20 million to bring it to fruition. The awards, which will be announced in summer, are to be used to build and scale actionable ideas for transformative change in the systems and institutions that uphold racial inequities.
The study proved eye-opening, even for members of Ujima whose life experiences mirrored those of their subjects.
Alexander Villegas, 20, an Albany Park resident and Ujima’s founder, said he was surprised young men of color were uncomfortable seeing a counselor or therapist because they were worried their story wasn’t safe, or thought the professional was only talking to them for the paycheck.
Jermal Ray, 17, another Ujima researcher and a senior at Curie Metropolitan High School, agreed.
“I learned young men of color don’t go to counselors or receive mental health support because of the fear of being sent to a psychotic facility, or that they are not going to be taken seriously,” Ray said. “I got involved in this project because I knew people that have gone through mental health challenges, and it’s hard to not be able to help.”
Participants said they thought society views them solely through a lens of race and gender — and the stereotypes that come with it — rather than as whole people.
“When it comes to men of color, we kind of brush off mental health,” one participant said. “When we actually admit we have issues like PTSD, people will deny it. They tell us, ‘How is that even possible?’ and that there is nothing wrong, so they don’t help us. But if a white person said they had it, they would treat it right away.”
The study benefited from its young researchers’ experiences, Rivera, a co-principal investigator of the Kellogg proposal, said.
“The ask has been there, because they recognize what the need has always been,” he said. “This is just further reinforcing what’s been the clarion call: ‘We want this. We’ve been needing this. We want better now. And we know what that better is.’ These recommendations are long overdue, but they’re also within reach.”
The details in the reportare vivid and show the benefit of giving voice to the young men at the center of the research, said Dr. John Walkup, chair of Lurie Children’s psychiatry department and principal investigator of the Kellogg proposal.
“Lurie Children’s has always been youth-focused ... but we haven’t always listened to kids in the community,” Walkup said. “I think we’ve sensitized ourselves to the voices of youth in the city of Chicago, around not just cancer and cardiac disease and things like that, but around racial injustice, about discrimination, and about Chicago Public Schools and the mental health system, and access.
“We’re creating new dialogue, and it’s going to be ongoing,” he added. “We’re listening and listening hard now. Even when we may not like what they have to say, because they put pressure on us to be better in ways that we need to be better, we can deal with that.”
Rivera, who participated in the research and wellness checks as part of his work at Lurie Children’s, recalls the feelings the young people shared after Toledo, who was like them, from communities like theirs, was killed by a Chicago police officer almost a year ago. The video was one more thing youths were dealing with at the time, including their personal traumas and the mental pummeling of the pandemic.
But the research created a safe space where the participants knew they could share openly and would have support.
It was in having “that sense of letting them know this was a confidential safe space to be vulnerable, that stuff emerged,” Rivera said.
Villegas and Ray want to see mental health professionals who live or hail from the neighborhoods they serve. That way, they understand the environment’s stressors when working with youth in those communities.
In doing the research, Ray said he became more open-minded to other young men going through different challenges.
“The research wasn’t just to know our situations, but how it connects to other boys of color and leading them to help themselves,” Ray said. “It gives me confidence to show up for myself.”
Both want change, and if the Kellogg proposal doesn’t win, Villegas said Ujima will continue to push to get awareness out on mental health resources in Black and brown neighborhoods regardless because “the work is never finished.”
And hopefully, the partnering organizations and others in the city will continue to respond to their call for change.
“I think this is laying the gauntlet down for a place like Lurie and other folks to say ‘Will you all listen to us?’ ” Rivera said. “Following through immediately will help demonstrate that the young people in these communities are being centered and validated in what they’re saying. And that they’re actually viewed as partners.”
