I Place My Hand in Yours: A Social Justice Based Intervention for Fostering Resilience in Street Life Oriented Black Men

Abstract

Despite some political, economic, and social gains, an overwhelming number of Black men in the United States face daily threats to their physical and psychological well-being. Although there have been calls for increased training in cultural competence in the fields of mental health, education, and medicine, the steadily increasing rates of racial disparities in these fields indicate that there remains a need to develop effective strategies to engage, treat, and foster resilience in marginalized communities. The authors offer Sites of Resilience (SOR) (Brown, 2004;Payne, 2001Payne, , 2005Payne, , 2006 as the theoretical lens for better understanding resilience and the Cultural Context Model (CCM) (Almeida, 1998(Almeida, , 2003Almeida, Dolan-Del Vecchio, & Parker, 2008) as a clinical model for engaging and treating street life oriented Black men in need of mental health services. A clinical case study of "Kode" illustrates how SOR theory and the CCM can be applied to create a therapeutic milieu that promotes healing and liberation. These approaches may increase client engagement, retention, as well as bolster street life oriented Black men's ability to better negotiate their environments.Black men in low income and economically impoverished urban communities are facing a mental health crisis as a result of the synergistic effects of racism,

Site of Resilience

“…Street life is a phenomenological term essentially viewed as an ideology centered on personal and economic survival (Brown, Payne, Dressner, & Green, 2010;Payne, 2001Payne, , 2005Payne, , 2006aPayne, , 2006bPayne, , 2008Payne & Gibson, 2008;Payne & Hamdi, 2009;Payne, Starks, & Gibson, 2009). For men, movement toward a street life orientation is typically accompanied by increased value and meaning in the overall ideo logy and/or code of the streets.…”

“…Legal employment activities can manifest in terms of (a) street vending (i.e., hot dogs/food, books, clothing, etc.) or (b) employing community interventions in the form of street outreach or participatory action research campaigns (Brown et al, 2010;Payne, 2006aPayne, , 2006bPayne & Hamdi, 2009). Illegal activities, for instance, include burglary, interpersonal violence, and use and sales of narcotics (Payne, 2006a(Payne, , 2006b(Payne, , 2008Payne & Hamdi, 2009;Utsey & Payne, 2001).…”

“…Also, within their family or local community these men may even be viewed as a developing "elder." Like adult men, these young men are often expected to be protectors, self-sufficient, providers or contributors, in control, emotionally sound, as well as loyal to family, other loved ones, and local community (Brown et al, 2010;Bowman, 1989;Payne, 2006aPayne, , 2008Payne & Hamdi, 2009;Spencer, 1995;Wilson, 1987). Wah Benz, a 17-year-old street-identified young Black male in Paterson, New Jersey, asserts in an interview with the author that sometimes everybody .…”

“…the presence of positive emotions and moods, and the absence of unpleasant affect. (p. 34) Social scientists will be better positioned to understand the worldview of street life-oriented Black men if they accept interpretation and direction from the men's personal constructions of resiliency and resilience (Brown et al, 2010). Traditionally, the social sciences have never permitted-or toleratedthe men's personal accounts or worldviews.…”

“…Also, the men should be theorized as holding caring and loving psychological characteristics that work in relation to illegal behavior. The men, often and through a variety of complicated expressions, are committed to God, family, friends, local community, the larger Black community, and life overall (Brown et al, 2010;Payne & Hamdi, 2009).…”