The Role of Occupational Therapy Services in Addressing the Mental Health of Black Girls: A Community Engaged Program Implementation Project

Abstract

Literature illustrates mental health disparities experienced by young Black girls (Leary, 2020; Morris, 2016) in the United States. Occupational therapy (OT) is an ideal profession to address these disparities through mental health group interventions (AOTA, 2020). The goal of this occupational therapy doctoral capstone (DC) project was to implement and examine the efficacy of an occupation-based program in addressing the mental health of Black girls in a community setting. Intervention implementation took place at a community-based afterschool center over eight consecutive weeks. Intervention activities were aimed at improving the participants’ understanding of social emotional skills, self-efficacy and self-esteem. The activities were versatile, culturally rooted, incorporated principles of trauma informed care (Menschner & Maul, 2016) and were cost effective. Program implementation efforts were assessed through mixed methods data analysis. The capstone experience also included the professional dissemination of results from a community-based mental health intervention program for young Black girls.