克利夫兰及周边地区消息

The Ohio Asian American Health Coalition

The Ohio Asian American Health Coalition in 2002, was established in 2002, with the goal of supporting health initiatives of member organizations, promoting research and education to address health disparities, and advocating for improved access to personalized, culturally and linguistically competent healthcare. Every two years, there is a conference to discuss different health issues faced by AANHPI. With the hiccup through pandemic, finally in partnership with OhioMHAS, 2022 mental health conference was held on Oct. 29 in Columbus. Ms. Pu from Erie Journal attended along with more than 50 attendees around Ohio and beyond to discuss the mental health of Ohio’s Asian-American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities.    Dr. Anjuli Amin, president of the Asian American Psychological Association, gave the keynote, titled “reclaiming mental health for you and your community.” She discussed culture values many of us resonate with including: Obligation/obedience to parents and elderly family members (filial piety) ● Prioritizing the group over the individual (collectivism) ● Respect for authority ● Indirect communication ● Conformity to norms ● Emotional self-control ● Family recognition through achievement ● Humility ● Avoidance of family shame. There is not only stigma related to mental health in AANHPI community, it is across the board, there might be some uniqueness from culture perspective. Dr. Amin suggested to reclaim ancestral healing with three questions to pond. What have been the practices in my family? ● How have we survived, coped, resisted thus far? ● Who are the trustworthy leaders/healers?   In the breakout sessions, Dr. Sampilo from Cleveland Clinic, shared her experience working with AANHPI youth; Dr. Sampilo brought her own stories as first-generation college students, Pilipino and Latinx background to the presentation, shared how mental health within AANHPI youth often overlooked, and parents were shocked to learn the severity of children’s mental health issues. May Chen, Asian Service in Action’s co-founder, and Fei Li, LicensedIndependent social worker from Asian Service in Action shared AAPI seniors’ challenges and their programming in Cleveland and Akron area. They talked about the starting of Chinese Mandarin Healing Circle, Northeast Ohio AAPI Senior Support group as they engaged seniors with bilingual staff to create the safe and trust environment. Dr. Cox, Japanese speaking clinical psychologist in Columbus shared what we can do to rewrite the narrative and build resilience to address mental health challenges.    There are some art work shared with the attendees from AANHPI artist to express mental health struggles and different ways of self-care. Could you share one art work here? Need to get permission from author[XD1]    Like Dr. Munoz,the president of Ohio Asian American Health Coalitionshared in the panel discussion, that years later, many challenges faced by AANHPI community haven’t changed, such as accessing to linguistically and culturally appropriate health care. Hence, there is work to do and to make AANHPI communities’ voices to be heard.   Are WE getting the permission from author? or the Newpaper need to get permission? This is a publication, not we use it for benefit, but the newspaper will use it. Also, I don't know which author you are refer to.[XD1]