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Over a year ago, I was invited to join a New York City-based initiative to provide recommendations on improving the health and lived experiences of New York City young women of color. In one of our first meetings, we were asked to identify the struggles that young women of color face in the city. With flip chart papers labeled as “reproductive health”, “education”, “access to physical exercise”, and others, we divided into groups and developed lists of things we felt were impacting young women of color negatively.
When we were done, each flip chart was filled to capacity. It seemed good because we were able to identify so much that we can pull from related to providing recommendations to the city. But as I looked around the room at the other flip charts, I felt incredibly drained. “What are the solutions to all of this?” I asked myself.
I’m glad I wasn’t alone in my concerns, because another person in the room made a crucial observation: First, we were a room full of adults, and while we may work with (or do research on) young women of color and have a pulse on what the issues may be, we’re nowhere near being youth. Second:
There's danger in focusing solely on what's wrong with young women of color. This leads to fear-based solutions. Share on X
It’s draining to focus on what’s wrong, especially when those problems are highlighted within your communities or within the communities you serve or ally with.
This isn’t to say that we should turn a blind eye to the challenges facing our communities. But what if there’s a better way?
What if we identified not only the problems, but the ways in which young women of color show resiliency? What if we asked young women of color to show us what the solutions are?
Case in point: We had a long discussion about why some young women of color don’t utilize their parents’ health insurance coverage when accessing reproductive health care services. The adults were coming up with all kinds of reasons–everything from not knowing where reproductive health care services are located in their communities to young women of color simply not knowing how health insurance works.
One of the few young women in the room shared her experience: Many young women of color are afraid that if they use their parents’ health insurance, the bill may be mailed directly to their house for their parents to open. As a result, they go to clinics in which services are free for young people. They find out about these clinics through their peers.
Young women of color are accessing reproductive health care services, but it may not in ways that can be tracked by health insurance companies. I never would have thought to do this as a teenager. That speaks to creativity AND resiliency.
So what’s a potential solution here? If young women of color are afraid of privacy invasion, a solution could be to educate young women of color on state and city confidentiality laws related to accessing reproductive healthcare services for adolescents. In the event that a bill is mailed to the house, unless the young person discloses why they received a reproductive service, the privacy of a young person is protected (at least in New York). The parent can contact the clinic, but due to state confidentiality laws, the clinic cannot disclose the nature of the visit. That includes everything from having a regular cold to getting a pregnancy test. Another possible solution is providing young women of color opportunities to speak with trained peer educators or trusted adults about navigating conversations with parents about accessing reproductive health care services.
Social worker Bertha Reynolds, while studying to become a psychiatric social worker at Smith College, noticed that the social work profession in the United States was relying too heavily on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), and not on viewing clients’ resiliency in the face of their adversities. This led to the development of the “strengths-based theory”. It’s a shift in mindset because our current focus reinforcing the idea that problems should receive the most attention. This can lead to individuals and communities feeling hopeless about their ability to make positive and lasting change.
When we focus on the resiliency and resourcefulness of young women of color, we shift the focus from what’s wrong to what’s creative enough to address it. Instead of focusing on what is lacking, why don’t we focus on the untapped potential and resources young women of color have to create solutions?
“Raise Your Voice for Women & Girls of Color” is more than a tag line. It’s a call to action I take my audience and clients to task on. As I continue to do the work, I challenge myself to focus on the creativity and resiliency of young women of color, and I challenge all of us to do the same.
