Our Network of Therapists
Black Mental Health Matters
Representation Matters
Healing Matters
Representation Matters
Healing Matters
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We provide quality mental health supports to members of the Black Community
Our services address a wide variety of issues ranging from trauma (sexual, physical and trauma related to immigration), depression, anxiety, worry, grief and stress, including societal stressors relating to the Social Determinants of Health (racism, poverty, housing, employment, family issues, etc.). We offer counselling support to diverse areas such as Black men’s mental health, caregiver support for parenting children and youth, seniors, wellness support for members of the Black 2SLGBTQ+ community, to name a few.
Our network of therapists/counsellors work from an anti-oppressive and resisting anti-Black racism framework which encompasses both teaching and learning from clients about the different forms of oppression that occur simultaneously in their lives on a day-to-day basis. Our therapeutic model involves an integrative process involving Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Narrative Therapy, and therapy from a Recovery Model of Care.
Through therapy, Black youth and families will:
Our network of therapists/counsellors work from an anti-oppressive and resisting anti-Black racism framework which encompasses both teaching and learning from clients about the different forms of oppression that occur simultaneously in their lives on a day-to-day basis. Our therapeutic model involves an integrative process involving Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Narrative Therapy, and therapy from a Recovery Model of Care.
Through therapy, Black youth and families will:
- Play an active role in the development of their recovery model of care.
- Engage in a process of personal empowerment which leads to increased self-awareness and clarity.
- Engage in a highly effective journey to personal healing.
- Develop a critical sense of self and belonging.
- Gain identity-specific knowledge about the impact of mental wellbeing on interpersonal relationships.
- Develop key strategies for dealing with individual and familial stress and anxiety.
- Learn how to be one’s own advocate for mental wellness in community and country.
| Research and Ethics Guide |
Upcoming Workshop
Black people have faced countless hardships, including but not limited to slavery, Jim Crow laws, redlining, and mass incarceration. These events are so traumatizing that Black people have passed down that trauma from generation to generation, and families have been forced to continuously cope with and heal from their ancestors’ traumatic pasts.
Intergenerational Trauma is a cyclical outcome to unhealed challenges within our families, communities, and society. As African/Black people’s living in North America, we have unique historical experiences directly connected to colonialism, slavery, and current day systemic disenfranchisement. These experiences have created a ripple effect in how we care for ourselves, how we experience interpersonal relationships (family & friends); and how we are viewed and/or how we view ourselves in society and our communities.
This workshop will explore Intergenerational Trauma and the direct impact on African/Black communities. It will guide attendees to understand how experiences of trauma show up in their everyday lives, how to start their healing journey and how to claim their authentic self.
Key Questions this Workshop will Explore
1. What is intergenerational Trauma?
2. How is this experience manifesting itself in the lives of our community and self?
3. What ways can we heal together and individually?
4. How can we begin to find our authentic self?
Intergenerational Trauma is a cyclical outcome to unhealed challenges within our families, communities, and society. As African/Black people’s living in North America, we have unique historical experiences directly connected to colonialism, slavery, and current day systemic disenfranchisement. These experiences have created a ripple effect in how we care for ourselves, how we experience interpersonal relationships (family & friends); and how we are viewed and/or how we view ourselves in society and our communities.
This workshop will explore Intergenerational Trauma and the direct impact on African/Black communities. It will guide attendees to understand how experiences of trauma show up in their everyday lives, how to start their healing journey and how to claim their authentic self.
Key Questions this Workshop will Explore
1. What is intergenerational Trauma?
2. How is this experience manifesting itself in the lives of our community and self?
3. What ways can we heal together and individually?
4. How can we begin to find our authentic self?
Meet the Facilitator
Gail Cetinja- Wedderburn, BSW, MSW, RSW, is a Registered Social worker with over 10 years of experience working with youth, women and families. Gail holds a bachelor and a master’s degree in Social work with a keen focus on how anti-Black racism impacts the health and well-being of people of African descent.
Gail has a private practice called ‘Gail Wilson Counselling Services’ in Toronto, Ontario where she specializes in issues surrounding Youth Justice, Racial Identity, Relationship issues, Anxiety and Depression. Gail offers individual counselling and group programming specific to the needs of the African and Caribbean community in Ontario.
Mental Health Strategy Community Engagement Survey Results
Our mental health program is one critical way that we show up for Black residents in Newmarket and beyond. We are committed to prioritizing opportunity, access, validation and healing for the community we serve. To do this, we have gathered a strong pool of culturally relevant and oppression-informed therapist from a variety of intersecting identities to whom we can connect residents.
The program provides ongoing subsidized individual counselling and quarterly workshops for youth, parents and caregivers in York Region’s Black communities.
The program provides ongoing subsidized individual counselling and quarterly workshops for youth, parents and caregivers in York Region’s Black communities.
What The Literature Review Tell Us
- 60% of Blacks in Ontario are at increased risk of psychosis.
- Literature on the health concerns and well-being of young Black women is almost non-existent in Canada.
- There is a gap in mental health services to support Black mental health and wellness through an intersectional approach.
- Long standing stigma around accessing mental health supports means that individuals may be struggling silently.
- There is a lack of culturally relevant treatment providers and Black therapists who take an African centred approach.
- Black individuals are more likely to qualify as low-income, experience unemployment and be uninsured, which presents as a barrier to accessing quality mental health services and support.
- Negative experiences with the health care system reduces Black individuals' willingness to seek and receive care.
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Multigenerational Trauma -
What Baton Are We Carrying? -
Reclaiming Black Mental Health
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"People don't tend to think of mental illness or disrupted mental wellness as the day-to-day experiences of racial microaggressions. They don't think of it as the panic attack that you have every time you enter a school or a workplace and you can't describe it but you know you have a visceral reaction. So because people don't recognize that and they think the world is just set up like that, and they just have to figure it out and like grin and bear it, they don't understand that what they're experiencing, potentially, is a form of racial trauma if you're in a Black body." -Kamilah Clayton, MSW, RSW, CBT Social Worker, Psychotherapist
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