Circle of Care and Hope

I designed a holistic, interventionist approach to treating Blacks with mental illnesses and addiction. Specifically, this approach integrates and adapts three distinct principles of healing: a biblical worldview, which includes the various spiritual practices of the laying on of hands and anointing with oil, prayers and meditations, uplifting scripture readings, faith-centered music, and church fellowship; practices that are culturally appropriate for Blacks, which include building trust, focusing on strengths, accounting for a community-based mentality, and incorporating uniquely Black spirituality; and multitheoretical healing practices, which include therapies based on self-efficacy theory, cognitive behavioral therapy, motivational interviewing, twelve-step chemical dependency treatments, Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and Madeline Leininger's transcultural nursing theory. The purpose of this Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) capstone project was to engage and empower Black people with a "Circle of Care and Hope" that helps them overcome their unequal access to effective mental health treatment. Blacks have historically distrusted the Western and Caucasian-dominated model of mental health, which has governed most medical and psychiatric treatments in the United States. This distrust understandably stems from a history of extreme racism, including slavery and segregation, against the Black community in the United States. However, the distrust has also distanced those who are already excluded from many of society's benefits from Western medicine. Conner et al. [1] write that for Blacks, "some of the most prevalent barriers acknowledged were lack of faith in mental health treatment, lack of access to treatment, mistrust, ageism, lack of recognition, and stigma" (p. 6). In other words, many Blacks distrust the Caucasian-dominated mental health system as a whole, and find it stigmatizing to participate in it. The expected result of the Circle of C