Since 1949, the National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI) has recognized May as Mental Health Awareness Month to uplift the realities experienced by millions of Americans living with a mental health condition. Bringing light to a topic can undermine stigma, creating a braver space for our patients, employees, students, and community members. This year we join NAMI in their 2023 theme of “More Than Enough” by centering the month through our educational programming that strives for a greater beloved community.
Our efforts at the Office of Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion are expanding to be more than enough, with the recent steps to establish the Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Center as part of our programming at UC Davis Health.
In 2017, UC Davis Health hosted healing circles with the Attitudinal Healing Framework from Oakland, California, to improve exclusion experienced by campus community members. Our work continued during the COVID-19 pandemic in response to grief associated with shelter-in-place and the racial reckonings that deepened after the death of so many members of the Black community in the year 2020. Over the last few years, we have held spaces to remind people that we are all more than enough, to empower connections, and to know we are doing our best to improve opportunities.
We’re thrilled to announce that the TRHT Center at UC Davis Health has joined rankings with national campuses through the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and the Association of American Colleges and Universities. We are in the first phase of providing a virtual center and are working towards the next steps with the center that will premiere on World Mental Health Day in October 2023. Our efforts to provide healing circles will continue to build on further opportunities that center healing, truth-telling, and transformative practices for a beloved society.
Learn more about how you can celebrate Mental Health Awareness Month through the National Alliance on Mental Health and the history behind the Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Center at UC Davis Health.
