Sisters Mentally Mobilized

Sisters Mentally Mobilized (SMM) is a community defined practice and intervention of the California Black Women’s Health Project (CABWHP) that is designed to prevent and reduce mental illness severity in Black women. Sisters Mentally Mobilized incorporates the foundational advocacy and empowerment principles of CABWHP’s signature Advocate Training Program (ATP) while also building the ongoing capacity of Black women to address mental health conditions and barriers in their lives and communities. An additional component of Sisters Mentally Mobilized is the formation of mental-health focused “Sister Circles” that will be mobilized to employ culturally responsive community defined interventions that address mental health issues in the following areas: 1) identification of risk factors and symptoms, 2) stigma awareness and reduction, 3) prevention of early onset and deterioration, and 4) increased awareness, solicitation and access of care. This comprehensive and combined approach is a culturally responsive prevention and early intervention (PEI) strategy to mitigate multiple risk factors and limitations in interventions that contribute to and exacerbate mental health disparities in Black women, their families and communities.