Checking In: Mental Health, Culture, and Client Care

In this episode of Torn, Sonia Johnson and Classie Colinet focus on mental health in Black communities and what it means for advocates to support their clients with care, context, and cultural understanding. Drawing from personal experience and community history, they talk about how mental health has been treated in Black families, the stigma that still exists, and the slow shift toward healing and openness.

They also speak directly to advocates working in the child welfare system, offering concrete ways to check in with Black and Brown clients, ask meaningful questions, and connect them with resources that reflect their realities. Throughout the episode, they make the case that tending to mental health isn’t a luxury—it’s a necessary part of advocacy, especially in systems that often ignore or pathologize the communities they claim to serve.