SAN ANTONIO — Only one in three black adults receive mental health treatment, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
To start conversations within the black community during Black History Month, NAMI San Antonio hosted an event Saturday, on the east side.
Eunice Grant came to the event looking for answers.
"I have a grandson who's got mental illness that just got diagnosed," she said. "We just picked him up last night and I knew I needed to be here because I just didn't know what to do next."
Grant explained that her response to mental health, in general, has changed.
"This conversation...I would have just said, 'pray for him, 'he'll be all right,'" she said. "But now, because we’ve been trauma informed in our church, our eyes are open and we're able to say, okay, there is something to mental health. And by being able to say that, at least it made us have an interest.”
The conversation was a part of NAMI San Antonio's Bridges to Care program. The goal of the program is to increase education and awareness about services, while removing shame from conversations about mental health for people of color.
"If you look at systemic barriers, if you look at, you know, historical pieces of our timeline, they're constantly a trauma that somehow has affected the black community," said Nuria Diallo Padro, the program director for Bridges to Care. "And so we have to recognize that as a result, there is a higher rate of mental health challenges in the black community.”
Diallo Padro explained by taking the time to celebrate and acknowledge the Black community during Black History Month, they're also hoping it'll create solutions within the community to support mental health.
For more information about NAMI San Antonio, and their services, click HERE.