January 28 is an opportunity to talk about mental health. It helps to normalize conversations around mental health, remove stigma and harmful barriers, and recognize that it’s okay to not be okay.
It’s also a good reminder that too often, well-being and mental health are left to each of us – as individuals – to address. To manage. To survive. To heal. Instead of individualizing mental health, let’s build stronger ties and foundations for collective care and community well-being, using tools like the Community care support plan, developed by BEAM, and build stronger capacities not just for ourselves, but for and with each other, as Mary Ann Clements describes:
…I want to see a world in which everyone has the space and resources they need to care for themselves and each other… Caring for ourselves can be done together too. We can share a meal, spend time doing something together, sit in circle and, if the emphasis is on care and holding each other in healthy ways, experience many of the benefits we receive from solo-time.
Resources to read, listen, act, and share:
Community Mental Health Resources
Tending Your Life Podcast: Vanessa Mentor on Anti-Capitalist Self-Care and Living Unrestrained
Rest for Resistance: by QTPoC Mental Health
Stories of Collective Care in the Time of COVID-19: Part 1 and Part 2, by Myseum
21-Day Challenge: Self-Care for Sustainability & Impact: Move to End Violence created the 21-Day Challenge as a resource individuals and organizations to practice self-care for sustainability and impact. A new challenge starts the first Tuesday of every month.
Resisting the commoditisation of self-care & building our capacity for collective care
BEAM: Black Emotional and Mental Health
- Toolkits and resources
- Community care support plan (PDF): a tool to help folx take care of each other. It can be used to support someone who is in distress, to maintain access needs or continue everyday care.
Radical Self-Care in the Face of Mounting Racial Stress: Cultivating hope through acts of affirmation
Healing in the Face of Cultural Trauma: FamilyCare, CommunityCare and SelfCare Tool Kit (PDF): “Community Healing Network (CHN), in collaboration with the Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi), is leading the global grassroots movement for emotional emancipation – to help Black people heal from and overturn the lies.”