2022 Black Well-being Final w links for Web 11.29.22 - Flipbook - Page 54
BLACK WELL-BEING REPORT 2022
Community Identified
Approaches to Health
BLACK FUTURE CO-OP FUND
As we begin to manifest the societal conditions for well-being,
health care as we know it today will drastically shift. We’ll be
able to easily get the care we need, when we need it from
people we know, love, and trust. Black researchers, scientists,
care providers, and community members will work together
across sectors to develop innovations built on the wisdom of
our ancestors. The experience of health care will once again feel
caring, loving, and supportive.
Redefine what care means
Care is not just something we deserve in crisis. It is loving attention to the conditions
necessary for our well-being. Tending to our well-being requires tending to what keeps
us well. It is more than a surgery, a diagnosis, or a prescription.
• Address mind, body, emotions, and spirit in all health care interactions.
See all of us — we are so much more than Black bodies.
• Learn and understand our histories — individually and
generationally — with deep humility.
• Help us ask the questions we don’t know to ask when we seek care.
• Care for the family (blood or chosen) and community, not just the
individual. We are connected.
• Fund free, ongoing therapy for Black people and families.
• Restructure systems and their many interactions to center our dignity
and humanity.
• Leverage institutional power to advocate for policies that shift societal
conditions to promote Black well-being — housing, employment,
education, public safety.
• Support and care for Black care workers. They are doing more than
their fair share.
Address ableism and racism in the health care ecosystem
Valuing health also means acknowledging all of the ways we’ve accepted ableist views
as a fundamental part of our health care, undergirding the way our society functions.
Our practices are rooted in a deep history of viewing humans, especially Black bodies,
as capital.
• Create community-led accountability mechanisms to report incidents
of racism. Licensure of facilities and providers should be impacted by
reports of ongoing racism.
• Train providers using public health and structural competency
frameworks.
• Address racism and elitism in the training environment, including
curricula, teaching, and practice.
• Prioritize the very young and the very old, viewing people as integral
parts of social systems.
• Fund Black-led research and give grants and scholarships to Black
people to enter health fields, especially medicine, policy, and research.
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• Enact government policies at every level that are comprehensive
across social determinants with a specific focus on addressing
racism.
