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Putting Black Girls at Promise Through Community Support · Voices For Suicide Prevention

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to this episode of Voices for Suicide Prevention.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_03: As we like to say, our conversations are real talk, real honest, real life.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Stephanie Booker.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm Scott Light.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: There are about 200,000 African American girls living in Ohio, and most of them are growing up in urban communities.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: The research tells us this: that many of these girls are exposed to higher levels of trauma than their peers, talking about things like community violence, instability, and chronic stress.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: This story isn't just about trauma, though.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is also about resilience, strength, and what happens when we start listening.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly, Scott, and that's what we're going to be talking about today.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_03: We're joined by two amazing women doing work that's really making a difference.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_03: Fran Frazier leads the Black Girl Rising Research Project.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: It's all about understanding how African American girls experience the world and using that knowledge to create real change.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_03: And we're also joined by Rebecca Jones, who works with the Mental Health Addiction and Recovery Services Board of Lorraine County as the Child and Adolescent Services Director.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_03: Rebecca has spent over 20 years in community mental health.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_03: Ladies, welcome both of you.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: Happy to be here.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Fran, let's start with you.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: What made you say uh this is the work that I need to be doing?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Take us back in history as as far as you want to go.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I don't know if you want to go back that far.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um well, I think a lot of it just had to do with how I grew up.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I came from a family that was Catholic and um had values and rules and that kind of thing, but I was also a black girl.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I dealt with skin color, um, the texture of my hair, uh, whether people thought I was too precocious or too smart, you know, all of those things.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: And as I, you know, went to grad school and learned about behavioral disorders and things like that, I never forgot who I was and the kind of community I grew up in.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I I grew up in a community where you literally could go to anybody's house anytime.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and then people really looked after you.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: But I know that's not the case for so many of our girls.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe about 20 years ago, a friend of mine was doing a lot of work in um school districts, but primarily back then, um, the focus was always on black boys, never on black girls.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: And he said that um principals in the six states he was working in kept saying, Do you have anything for girls?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have anything for girls?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: So he knew that by then I I literally had, I guess you could call it a ministry for black women.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: And um I have a minor in curriculum development, so he asked me if I could whip something up.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if I whipped it up or not, but I created um a program called The Angel in You.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: And well, I think it's like to do with being Catholic.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: And um, so the angel, you know, guides, protects, kind of lets you know what's going on.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so I paired that with a girl's intuition.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of times girls don't even know they had that.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: They, you know, you know something isn't right, but you don't get to figure out where it is in your body.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so so that's what I did.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: I created that program.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: And it was like a rites of passage program for girls.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: And it went very truthfully, it went very, very well.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but then I start looking at black girl aggression and what was causing our girls to be so mad all the time, so angry.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: And um, so I wanted to really look into that.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I spent probably maybe the next 20 years looking at that kind of aggression, uh, looking at bullying, harassment, um, the all of the issues that keep our girls unsettled.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: And then one day, Leslie Brouwer at the State Department of Mental Health, before they changed their name, called me and she said, I know you're doing a lot of work in racism, but I'm wondering if you're interested in looking at mental health in a black community.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, not necessarily.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of like a big thing.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: I said, But I am interested in the mental health of black girls.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: So we kind of went round and round about that.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the state wanted to do a bigger picture.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted to kind of hone in.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but they agreed.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: So we created um a survey instrument that had at least 500 items on it.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we used six different survey instruments because I really wanted to look at how black girls really felt about themselves.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: What did they eat?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: What did they drink?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, are there somatic things that they're dealing with?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: Who do they live with?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, do they have dreams?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: Are they sleeping?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: Everything.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: And um, so we surveyed 411 black girls in four cities.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um Sandy Stevenson was the director at that time.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: So she wanted three major cities so Columbus, uh, Dayton, and Akron.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: And um she suggested Lima uh because it has a large black population, but it's a small city.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: And that was great because um I used to work for the State Department of Human Services as the State Director for Cultural Initiatives.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I had organizations in all of those cities that I could rely on because they didn't want to go through schools.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: Because they didn't want a school telling me, well, you can't just do black girls.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: So um so that's what we did.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: And um we've been using that research, and we've been conducting focus groups just to kind of stay current in terms of what girls are really dealing with.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: So our study was called Placing Black Girls at Promise, uh, the Rise Sister Rise Research Study, because eventually we thought our program was going to be called Rise, Sister, well, Rise, Sally Rise at first, because you know there's that um community um I don't know what to call it.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's a community play thing that I grew up with.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um Rise, Sally, Rise, wipe your dirty eyes.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so um that's initially the direction we were going.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: Then we found out that somebody owned a copyright to that.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: So we decided to go with Rise Sister Rise because nobody had that.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: And um the APA Association had conducted a um a strength and resiliency study on black youth.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that they said was for black youth to be placed at promise rather than at risk, they needed the entire community to be behind them.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: And one of our um, truthfully, uh one of our leadership fellows said this is we ought to be placing black girls at promise.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: So we've been doing our best to rise up girls.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Rebecca, let's come to you.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: What makes you, what keeps you so motivated to do this work?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: You've been at this for decades as well.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, probably three decades.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm embarrassed to admit.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: I this really started the work, particularly particularly around Black Girl Rising started when I met Sister Fran at a conference.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: And right away, I just knew that our girls deserved that kind of support and investment in them being as resilient um and and the best they could possibly be.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: So it really started with a Humadop conference in Dayton three years ago.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Sure did.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we we met kind of at uh in the lobby over dinner.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I heard Sister France speak, and I was like, oh, we we we we have to do this here because our girls deserve it.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And in the middle of a world that's really hard right now, and there's a lot of negativity going on, um, we can't stop.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: We we have to invest in our youth, and this is an opportunity to do that.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what keeps me moving, is that um it feels good to be a part of something so positive and right.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, can I say this?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: So after uh my presentation uh at the Umidop conference, uh Rebecca comes over to me and she says, You're coming to Lima.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know when you're coming, but you are coming.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: Lorraine, I'm sorry.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: You are coming to Lorraine.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, okay.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, right.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: Two years.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: She worked hard for two years to make that happen.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I stalked Sister Fran at conferences.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, hi, remember me.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: We need you here.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: She did, she did.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's the way stuff happens.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's the way movements begin.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: It really is.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: And and I'll be honest, there's other work that has been happening in Lorraine County, but the research behind what Sister Fran has done really connects the heart of the work with what's the best practice way to get the same results.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because having a big heart is really important.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I've learned over my career it's not enough.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: You have to have a big heart and then also know what's the best way to make these things happen.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm curious, Rebecca, when you heard that first talk about Black Girl Rising, what stood out to you that made you say, we're bringing this to Lorraine County?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: It was the idea of gathering women together.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: Sister Fran talks about the women in the community that support uh Black Girl Rising in different ways.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it gives them an opportunity to give back.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: But what really did it for me was hearing about the think factory, and that's the girls support each other and help each other come up with ideas to make change.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not about I'm your mentor.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's about I'm here to support you and support each other in figuring things out.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's what really that's the youth voice piece right there.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it's tough to do, right?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, sometimes I think I have great ideas, but it's been a long time since I was an adolescent.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so we really need to hear from the youth.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what really did it.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: And also, like sister friend is really dynamic.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking of that dynamism uh in preparation for our recording today, I watched that nine-minute video on your on your website.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: Which one?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: On your website.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, oh, okay.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the one that you that you moderate.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that that touch that this is us.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's your voice, right?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: It is.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's one.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's a heck of a video.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, can I just say as an aside, I love whoever created it.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: It starts out in black and white.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: It does.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Then color comes in.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just the touches to that thing are just awesome.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, so a little shout out to Global Insights.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Nicely done.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's really good.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: How does and and and let's go back, Brian, to um something that is that is a signature signature part of your communications with this.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: When you talk about putting black girls at promise instead of at risk.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: How does how does that play out in real life with black girls, black girl rising?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, it's truthfully, it's it's exactly what Rebecca said.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: We we don't give advice, we don't preach, um, they may not know our stories unless they ask.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: Our entire job is to facilitate them.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: So we ask questions like, well, what happened to give to give you that opinion?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um what what was going on that made you think that that was important to you?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: So it gets them talking.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: And um, so we're girl-led, we're girl-centered, we're girl-focused.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so for a lot of our girls, they're not used to sharing their thoughts and ideas.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: So it takes them a minute to feel relaxed enough to just talk and to and not be judged, or somebody say, Oh, you know, oh, that reminds me of when I was 10.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we we don't do any of that.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: It literally is designed.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we feel like the way to get girls to be at promise is if they can decide their own direction.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so we created, we had a conference um, oh, I don't know, 15 years ago, 10 years, no, not couldn't have been that long, like maybe 10 years ago.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: And we asked girls questions like, what do you think about all day?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: What do you worry about?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: What do you care about?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: Who are your go-to people?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: How do you spend your money?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: What do you believe in?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: And we put um chart paper all around the conference room.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: So the girls had to go up, they had to read, you know, write what they thought.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: And then um we condensed all of that.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: We invited girls, we had like 140 girls at that conference.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: It was before COVID.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: And um we invited girls back um to take a look at the data.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: And thirty girls came back, and then we wanted to disaggregate the data, put it in categories.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: So then about 22 girls showed up, same 22 out of that 30.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then as we kept that process going, we ended up with about 16 to 18 girls.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: By then, they are like really into the issues, and so I said, Oh, this would be a great think tank.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: So we created our first think tank, and uh the girls decided that there were six major issues in the black community that literally affected their mental and emotional health, and not in a good way.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: Body shaming, teen depression, homophobia in the black community, so LGBTQIA plus issues, um colorism, bullying, and lack of conflict resolution skills.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: So they created a mental health campaign called I Am Good Enough.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: So they created workshops, we had um symposiums for parents, we brought in big names of um researchers and uh academicians, mental health professionals.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Jamelia Blake from the University of Texas was one of those.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: She coined the um phrase adultification of black girls.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so her work literally kind of frames our work.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: So that that's really um how we that truthfully that's how we operate.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and I can tell you, I'm really proud of this.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: Well, not proud.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: I could be proud, but I think it's more, oh my goodness.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um we meet with the think tank girls once a month for three straight hours.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: And um two girls from the very first, the charter think tank girls from the very first think tank.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: Two of those girls have come back to actually work with us.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um one has a um a dual degree in um uh political science and women's studies um from OSU, studying for LSAT at Harvard, she wants to go, but is working at the um United Nations Foundation in DC.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: The other girl is um graduated from uh Bowling Green with a degree in statistical analysis.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: So they they're both from here.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: But out of the sixteen, fifteen went to college, graduated, and five have come back to either volunteer, be on our board, or um we've given consulting contracts to.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so I watched these two girls facilitate the think tank.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: It was amazing.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: It really was amazing.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it it just kind of blew me away.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: It really did.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um teach girls how to facilitate small group dialogues because that's a skill we think they should have.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: And um and so to watch that in practice was something.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_03: I bet.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_03: That's certainly a testament to the influence that Black Girl Rising had as they were growing up and developing.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_03: That's awesome.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: Rebecca, going back to the Lorraine County piece of this, so talking about two years you've been in process, it are is it up and running now in Lorraine County?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_03: Tell us a little bit about what's happening in your community with this program.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: We work very closely with Sister Fran because we want to maintain the fidelity of her program.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's why it works, because she does everything that she does with the same principles in mind.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: So she does a lot of consulting with us via Zoom and also she comes in person.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: I've tried to encourage her to move to Lorraine County, but she won't do it.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um But we've had several events thus far.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: We had a one-day girls um conference in October.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we've also implemented uh in two spaces uh the love letters to black girls, which is a really cool thing that Sister Fran taught us about.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a book of love letters written by women to black girls related to community violence toward it, it came about, and I you could tell the story better than I could, but it came about related to violence toward a black girl.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so a group of women in the Columbus area wrote love love letters to black girls, and then those are read.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's the events are that they're read to a group of girls, and the feedback is wild.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: It touches their hearts.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, our next event coming up is not this Saturday, but next Saturday, and it's mother-daughter conversations.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's a facilitated conversation between mothers and daughters, and they have an opportunity to work on projects together.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: Again, this is based on everything Sister Fran has learned about what works and what doesn't.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it also comes out of the girls saying, I wish I could talk to my mother.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: My mother doesn't understand me.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: And we hear from youth all the time that adults don't listen to them.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: But but black girls identified wanting to have that understanding with their moms.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the next thing that we're doing.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then in June, we'll be bringing a group, we'll also bring boys too, but a group of youth to the Life is Better With You here uh conference.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, and we have our whole schedule set out for the year for Black Girl Rising.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: That comes out of the Communities of Color subcommittee of our suicide prevention coalition.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, our hope is to eventually get to the point where we're ready to do the think tank, think factory.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we're just moving ahead with events.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_03: Do you ultimately have any goals set for what you're hoping to be able to accomplish by bringing Black Girl Rising to Lorraine County?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: A space for girls, creating a safe space for girls to develop to their best selves and that they can share what they learned with the rest of the community.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, when I talk to the media who ask, is this a one and done?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because then when they come to our events, And I'm like, oh no, no, no, you'll be coming back.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: You can't keep your eye out.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: Our really our hope is, and not just myself, but the whole committee is that that we have an established Black Girl Rising community in in Lorraine County.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and from what Fran just said, you're you're developing your own ambassador program.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh of these these these young ladies who come back.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe maybe they do go off to college or do some other things, but they come back and they want to serve.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: And think about the power of youth that we've invested in, right?
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not just the women in the room, but the knowledge that there's a group of women who look like you and some who don't, who care about you developing to be whoever you want to be.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: Some of the girls, I I hope it's okay if I share this.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: There was a um a focus group that we held, and Sister Fran wasn't able to be there that day.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so Reagan Phillips and I um facilitated the focus groups using all black girl rising questions.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: But when the girls first got there, some of them didn't understand why they had been invited.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, you know, Sister Fran asked us to look for smart girls in the community.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: And we asked that of the women that referred you.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: And just that, they were really surprised to hear someone say, You were invited because you're smart and you have something to say.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: The power of that was really eye-opening to me.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about this.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Is uh not to get into a thicket here, but Stephanie and I did want to have at least a question or two, open up a conversation about race.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we are in a moment in our lives in this country and and really worldwide.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um it can get complicated, um, whether it's you know, rallies and protests uh really taking place all over the world, to court cases coming down from the highest courts in the land.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Some people may question why it's okay to focus on one group.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: In this case, it's African-American girls.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: How would you respond to that?
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: How I do respond to it when it's asked of me is that different groups need different pathways or to access to behavioral health care and to wellness, just like what would work for a group of veterans doesn't work for adolescents.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and what might work for student athletes is not the same.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, our coalition really does try to adapt to the needs, recognize the needs of the community, and find the best practice way to reach them.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: I have been asked, well, why don't you focus on all youth?
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and my answer is I do.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: I um my board funds a lot of programming across the community for many levels of care and many folks.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm so grateful that my board also supports my work with the Suicide Prevention Coalition.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they do act as our our fiscal agent.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um but they're aware that black girls are underserved.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: And and and folks might say we have been trying to reach them, but we haven't been that effective.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and back to what Sister Fran talked about with youth violence.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um happy people and people who are well adjusted aren't fighting, right?
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: And and I saw it a rise in our community as well, not just with black girls fighting, but we have data around black girls going to the emergency room for suicidal ideation and self-injurious behavior.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: So the data also supports the work.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I can talk all day because it's this is a heart thing for me.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but also the data says we need to do it.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: I I kind of look at it, I I like the, I don't know if this is a metaphor, an example, or whatever, but if I have stomach cancer, I don't need a podiatrist.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: I need an oncologist.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: I need somebody targeted who's gonna come in with that expertise, getting to your larger point, because that affects my overall health care.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of look at the same way.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think it seems pretty logical.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you you just kind of said it in the most succinct, wonderful way that I've ever heard it, Rebecca, really.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: I I think my my piece is that when you look at the communities of girls, girls of color have a hard time adapting.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: Only because you're made to be aware constantly that you look like somebody that somebody else would you rather not look like.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so you're holding on to that all day long, every day.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: And eventually it begins to erode whatever strength or goodness you have, unless somebody is supporting you.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: Unless somebody is saying to you, yeah, this is the way of the world, but it doesn't have to be your way of your world.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: You figure out what works for you and to do it without anger, to do it without having to justify anything.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that literally is when Rebecca says that we when we do focus groups and girls want to know why, you know, why did you how did I get chosen?
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: And the answer is it's because you have voice.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: You you're smart.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I I say that a lot.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: I I asked I asked your teacher to find girls who got attitude, have opinions.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: So that that's why you you're here.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and the girls that we get um to participate really are smart.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of them just don't know it.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: But they really are and they do have ideas, and those ideas are not colored by race, they're colored by their own potential.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, at some truthfully, um we are planning to have um, I want to have the conference this year, but our team is like, no, Stefan, you got us doing too many things already.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: But I had to, uh I belong to an international women's group, and they asked me if I would speak to a group of girls in Cincinnati.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: I thought they were gonna be all black girls, but they weren't, they were all white girls.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: But I asked them the same questions I asked black girls.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: What's affecting your mental and emotional health right now?
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: That's the only question I ask.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: And they started talking and talking, and I said, you know, this is really interesting.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: The stuff you're saying is what I hear from black girls all the time.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the girls said, I'm white, I'm heavy, I don't have blonde hair, and I don't have blue eyes.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: And whenever I look on social media, that's what I'm looking at.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: I am not represented.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_02: And she said, Sister Fran, it is the myth of beauty that's getting in the way.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Oh my god, you're gonna make me have a conference.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: I did, I really did.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_03: So that's to come.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_03: It is to come.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, but it's a it's it's a gathering of white, black, African, immigrant, Latina, Asian girls.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you live in this country, it is always about a myth of beauty.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: And it literally affects how you see yourself in the world.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: Because we are always being asked to compare ourselves to somebody else, and it's not healthy.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so yeah, it's coming.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um I would love for it to come sooner, but uh but it is coming.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's something I think we really do need to have that conversation.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: But I also think one of the things it'll do is to make girls feel comfortable in their own circle and not be concerned about whether your hair is long and fine, and be okay with the your hair that might be tight and curly, or your skin color, or the color of your eyes, all of those things get in the way of being the very best that you can be.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's that classic uh, and she's had a bunch of lines, but uh Dolly Pardon was giving a commencement speech a long time ago, you know, and she didn't go to college, grew up in Appalachia, Tennessee, and she said to the group, she said, I'm not offended by dumb blonde jokes.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason is I'm not dumb.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not blonde either.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's perfect.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: But seriously, that's that that gives anyone confidence.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: And she did that again at a college graduation.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: A place that she she didn't get to, you know, in in her youth.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 31:45
  unknown: How are we doing on time?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: How are we doing on time?
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: We're at uh about 37 minutes, so you want to start to wrap it up?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think so.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_03: I think so.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um We're not leaving.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_03: No, I'm just kidding.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_03: We have more to say.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I I'm just curious, you know, at this point, because you know, we talked about goals in Lorraine County.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um, Rebecca, so far, what have you said?
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, this is really working.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_03: I I really love how this is is turning out so far.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I I think probably the favorite event that we've had is the feedback around uh love letters to black girls, but also the development of our committee working together, because it really does require that we work together in a different way than we have.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: So there are some professionals.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think all the women in the group are professionals.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them are mental health professionals, and some of them are professionals in other ways.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: But to do the work that we're gonna ask the girls to do, and Sister Fran's been, she said you had you can't do this unless you can do this work together.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think that that's been a really great opportunity to learn about myself.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think it's been good for the other folks as well.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: And to a person, every time we talk about this program, people want to know more about it and they want to be a part of it.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so so I know that it's needed.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: And the other thing, I honestly, I would love Lorraine County to be a model for when Sister Fran is able to share Black Girl Rising across the state.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because you know what, I live in Lorraine County and I think our girls deserve that, but I also think black girls across the state deserve it too.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I would love us to figure out how do we learn from Sister Fran and stand it up in a way with fidelity to her model and to her work, and then be able to share what we learned from working together with other communities who would like to do the same thing.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Bran, how can people get involved with Black Girl Rising?
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: Call Rebecca.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_02: But they um they could certainly go to our website like you did.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um our uh email address is Blackgirlrising Inca Gmail.com.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, we're always looking for volunteers.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and we are bringing uh our think tank girls to Lorraine this summer.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh because I want them to talk to the women about how they get facilitated.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um they they and they they want to come anyway.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um what else?
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, uh our telephone number is 614-264-3389.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: And again, to anyone listening, watch that video on your website.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's an animated version of Fran on that video.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you're voicing it, but it's just boy, it is so well done.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: Gives you it just gives you chills.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's nicely done.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: Ready to go.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_02: They did a fabulous job.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: They really did.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, the vision for it was really good.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: The execution was even better.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_02: I need to cough.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_03: This is what happens.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_03: Wonderful.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't I didn't open this.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_03: Oh no, thank you.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_03: I think I've it's passed.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Rebecca and Fran, so much for sharing your insights and and the work that you're doing in Central Ohio through Black Girl Rising as well as now in Lorraine County.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_03: We really appreciate this and helping to build those strong support systems and and learning from those voices of the girls themselves.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_03: We really appreciate it.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for the opportunity.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_02: Really.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you very, very much.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: We also say thanks to our listeners.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: When you listen to our episodes, you break stigmas, break barriers, and you care about mental health and saving lives.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is Voices for Suicide Prevention, brought to you by the Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation.