As a biology major on a full scholarship at Howard University in the early 2000s, Kalisha Smith pursued a childhood dream of becoming a pediatric neurosurgeon.
But by the end of her freshman year at the historically Black university in Washington D.C., Smith knew she needed to change her career path, she said, after struggling to tolerate the amount of blood she saw during surgeries. By her senior year, her search led her to apply for a research assistant position at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, which she took up after graduation.
There, she worked with the Healthy Generations Program, a “teen-tot” program that strives to provide comprehensive, family-centered health care for teen parents and their children.
“When I entered into the field in my very early 20s, I didn’t know that I would be doing suicide prevention work,” said Smith, now a New Jersey licensed clinical social worker and the associate clinical director of the Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide. “Never did I think that I would be, 20 years later, having conversations specifically around Black youth and suicide.”
Smith, now a mother of five, says her ability to connect and empathize with others stems in part from her desire at an early age to help people, while also coming from a legacy of “very caring” people; both of her parents were ministers. Her spouse and “Howard sweetheart,” the Rev. Jerrold Smith Jr., is also a board-certified chaplain at RWJBarnabas Health in New Brunswick.
Taking care of each other
“That was something that was so important to us — caring for our community,” Smith said of her family while growing up. “And definitely going to Howard University and the legacy of Black people, specifically, [and] folks of color, in general, who take care of each other.”
Today, Smith’s work at the Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide, a nonprofit based in Freehold, comes during a critical time in youth suicide prevention efforts. Suicide is the second leading cause of death nationally for young people ages 12 through 24, according to studies citied in a December report from The Jed Foundation, a nonprofit that aims to protect emotional health and prevent suicide among teenagers and young adults across the country. The fastest increasing suicide rates nationally are among Black people between the ages of 10 and 24, according to studies cited by The Jed Foundation. New Jersey was also one of five states that had an increase in adolescent suicides during the pandemic, according to a 2022 research letter published in JAMA Pediatrics. JAMA is the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Kalisha Smith discusses one teen suicide prevention program
In an effort to prevent suicide among young people of color in New Jersey, Smith helped to develop a training program at the Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide. Called Healing in the Collective, the two-hour-long workshop teaches mental health professionals, or anyone who works with young people, the warning signs and risk factors of suicide among youth of color, and the protective factors needed to prevent a tragedy from occurring.
“A lot of the work that I’m personally engaged in, and so many other folks like myself who are folks of color in the suicide prevention conversation, we talk a lot about creating spaces that are uniquely centered around Black youth and their experience,” said Smith.
This includes highlighting “what’s going on” for Black young people so that they can feel connection, have their stories highlighted and so that treatment can be developed and designed with them in mind, Smith said.
“We want to see funding go towards researchers who are centering the challenges of Black youth,” Smith added.
Building resiliency
The Healing in the Collective training includes creative strategies for suicide prevention among young people of color, including educating trusted adults such as faith leaders, coaches and Boys & Girls Club leaders, which in turn helps to decrease stigma, according to Smith.
“When I think about this work of prevention, it really is going to take all of us and it’s going to take us having some brave or courageous conversations with young people, but also with ourselves … as caregivers, as trusted adults in the community, as mental health professionals and also as the media,” Smith said.
‘True suicide prevention for Black youth can’t happen as separate from social justice.’ — Kalisha Smith
Drivers of the mental health crisis for Black children begin early and persist through a lifetime, The Associated Press reported in May. Black children’s first encounters with racism can start before they are even in school, and Black teenagers report experiencing an average of five instances of racial discrimination per day, according to a study cited by the AP. Young Black students are also often perceived as less innocent and older than their age, leading to disproportionately harsher discipline in schools.
Nationally, Black adolescents are also far less likely than their white peers to seek and find mental health care. In part, that’s because Black families often distrust the medical system after generations of mistreatment — from lack of access to care to being subjected to racist practices and experimentation like the Tuskegee Study. The country also has a shortage of providers who understand the roles that racial identity and racism play in shaping young Black people’s mental health.
Access to resources
In New Jersey, Black and Hispanic students don’t have the same access to mental health staff in schools as white students, a change from a decade ago, according to a 2022 report published by the New Jersey Policy Perspective think tank. While these gaps persist, state lawmakers and the Murphy administration have attempted to address youth mental health through funding and legislation requiring principals, librarians and faculty who interact with children daily in schools to complete a one-time training program in suicide prevention, among other efforts. Public school teachers already receive training in suicide prevention as part of their professional development under current law.
In January, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a law requiring public schools to provide instruction for students in grades 8 through 12 on, at a minimum, the physical, emotional and behavioral symptoms of grief. Students are also to be taught, according to the law, coping mechanisms and techniques for handling grief and loss and schools are to provide resources to students, including in-school support, mental health crisis support, and individual and group therapy.
Last year, the state created a program now known as the New Jersey Statewide Student Support Services (NJ4S) program, which aims to provide more mental health services to more students statewide. Murphy’s proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year includes $43 million for the program.
At the Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide, Smith and her fellow mental health professionals also address suicide prevention through a school-based program called the Lifelines Trilogy, which includes a curriculum for school staff, parents and students in grades 5 through 12. The training aims to increase the likelihood that staff and students will know how to identify at-risk youth, provide an “appropriate” initial response to the situation, seek help and take action.
Social justice
“What we’re hoping for Black youth is that they’re … given a chance,” Smith said. “That they are given the same grace, and they are afforded the same advantage and privilege as any other student,” she said.
The nonprofit also offers a program that aims to enhance the “competence and confidence” of hospital staff and mental health professionals to assess and manage young people and adolescents who are at risk for suicide. The program, known as the Adolescent & Youth Clinical Training for Suicide Prevention, currently offers training to nurses, outpatient providers, emergency department staff and general hospital staff.
Smith’s work as a mental health professional and impact on suicide prevention efforts for all young people, and especially young people of color, has been noted by many of her colleagues in the field, including Susan Tellone, her director supervisor at the nonprofit.
“People are drawn to her — her warmth, her relentless commitment to youth mental health and the way she treats all people,” said Tellone, who also serves as the clinical director at the Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide. “She leaves you with a sense of empowerment and hope,” Tellone added.
While progress has been made in suicide prevention efforts for Black young people across the state, Smith continues to see a connection between mental health and racial injustices.
“True suicide prevention for Black youth can’t happen as separate from social justice,” Smith said. “Suicide prevention is a matter of social justice in my mind.”
If you or a loved one are in crisis, please call the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.
NJ Spotlight News: Bobby Brier, Mental Health Writer | March 6, 2024