Searching for Mental Health Providers of Color

The mental health treatment field is disproportionately white. What barriers do people of color face while trying to find care? And how important is it to find a provider that can identify with a person’s race, culture and experiences?

MPR News shares “Searching for Providers of Color,” a broadcast special from Call to Mind, American Public Media’s initiative to foster conversations about mental health.

Through in-depth interviews and reported stories, this hour-long program examines the barriers to diversify the mental health treatment field and how communities of color are getting the care they need.

Call to Mind specials are hosted by Kimberly Adams, senior correspondent for APM’s Marketplace who covers mental health, politics, business and the economy from Washington, D.C.

Guests:

• Christine Catipon is vice president of the Asian American Psychological Association and a psychologist at Stanford University Counseling and Psychological Services.

• James Rodriguez is senior director of clinical initiatives at New York University’s McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research.

• Ruth Shim is a professor in cultural psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and an associate dean at University of California, Davis School of Medicine.

• Cheryl D. Wills is a member of the Presidential Task Force on Structural Racism, of the American Psychiatric Association. She’s also vice chair of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity and chief of child psychiatry at The MetroHealth System in Cleveland and associate professor of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University.