One of the biggest disparities affecting people of color in the United States concerns maternal mental health. In 2022, WorkingGroup512, based in East Austin, received a $5,000 grant from the Hogg Foundation for its maternal mental health project. The project provides holistic support and healing to a focus cohort of Black mothers and primary caregivers, ages 16 to 65, caring for at least one child between birth to two years old.

In this episode of the podcast, we speak with Neishai Gregory, a doula who works with Working Group 512, and Virginia Baldwin, a mother and client, to learn more about the organization’s work building a community of care for Black women as they experience the mental health challenges of pregnancy and parenting.

Related links

Healthy Minds Grants 2022

https://hogg.utexas.edu/2021-healthy-minds-grants

Maternal Mental Health: Where Family Well-being Begins

https://hogg.utexas.edu/podcast-maternal-mental-health

This is Part 2 of our month-long conversation on the attack on LGBTQ+ rights and its impact on mental health in Texas. The LGBTQ+ community in Texas is getting it from all sides; not just efforts to ban or sharply curtail gender affirming care, but bans on trans youth participation in sports, book bans, and just the general climate of fear-mongering that cast a shadow over Pride Month this year. Joining us to help connect the dots between the issues, the rhetoric, and people’s mental health are state Rep. Celia Israel of Austin, and Brad Pritchett of Equality Texas.

Related links:

Hogg Foundation Statement on Pride Month

https://hogg.utexas.edu/statement-on-lgbtq-pride-month

Episode 133: Gender Affirming Care is Trauma-Informed Care

https://hogg.utexas.edu/podcast-gender-affirming-care-trauma-informed-care

Episode 122: Gender Affirmation Can be Life and Death

https://hogg.utexas.edu/podcast-gender-affirmation

Episode 82: Gender Identity and Well-being: Toss the Rulebook

https://hogg.utexas.edu/podcast-gender-identity-and-well-being

June is Pride Month. We recognize the contributions lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/queer plus individuals have made to society--and the continued urgency of their struggle. The LGBTQ+ community has had to fight for acceptance, inclusion, and civil rights in a society that has historically shunned their very existence. The LGBTQ+ community continues to face many obstacles to their individual mental health and well-being, and this has never been more true than in the summer of 2022.

In this episode we explore gender affirming care as a form of trauma-informed care, and what it means to try to be trauma-informed for a community in peril. Our guests are Eli Lawrence, Clinical Supervisor of Behavioral Health for Waterloo Counseling Center; and Andrea Segovia, Senior Policy and Field Advisor for Trans Education Network of Texas.

Related links:

Episode 122: Gender Affirmation Can be Life and Death

https://hogg.utexas.edu/podcast-gender-affirmation

Episode 82: Gender Identity and Well-being: Toss the Rulebook

https://hogg.utexas.edu/podcast-gender-identity-and-well-being

Hogg Foundation Statement on Pride Month 2022

https://hogg.utexas.edu/statement-on-lgbtq-pride-month

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. We’re taking this time of cultural recognition to look at connections between this community and the Hogg Foundation’s core concerns for mental health and health equity.

In Episode 132 of Into the Fold, we speak with three representatives from the Asian Americans Attaining Awareness (AAAA) initiative to explore Asian American mental health in the context of shared collaborative effort: Dr. Aneela Khan, Community Behavioral Health Program Manager at the Asian American Health Coalition of Greater Houston HOPE Clinic; retired Colonel Vipin Kumar, Executive Director of the India House, a nonprofit community resource center in Houston; and Jason Lau, MPH, a project manager for DePelchin Children’s Center in Houston.

Related links:

Episode 115: Fear of Going Outside: A Podcaster on Asian Identity, Mental Health and Belonging

https://hogg.utexas.edu/podcast-fear-of-going-outside

Episode 101: Asian American Identity in the Time of COVID-19

https://hogg.utexas.edu/podcast-covid-19-and-asian-americans

How We Should Respond to Anti-Asian Racism

https://hogg.utexas.edu/how-we-should-respond-to-anti-asian-racism

April 22 is Earth Day. It is an opportunity to assess the current health of our physical environment and explore ways to protect and improve it. As young people increasingly express concern about the impacts of climate change, Earth Day is also a natural opportunity to explore the connection between climate anxiety and mental health.

In this episode of Into the Fold, we speak with two passionate community activists from Mi Familia Vota, a grassroots organization working to build Latino political engagement on a variety of civic issues, including environmental justice. Texas Director Angelica Razo, along with Environmental Justice Organizer Esmeralda Gonzalez, discuss their work mobilizing young people to address environmental challenges and advocate for systemic change.

Related links:

Episode 124: Changing the Landscape: People, Parks and Power

https://hogg.utexas.edu/podcast-green-space

The month of March is Women’s History Month. For this milestone 130th episode of our podcast, we put the spotlight on a remarkable woman who we recently lost: Sarah Weddington, who made an enormous contribution to history as a successful litigator in the landmark Roe V. Wade case, and who passed away last December. She appeared in a 1970's episode of The Human Condition, the radio series produced by the Hogg Foundation from 1971 to 1983. We have reproduced this episode for a wide-ranging discussion of Weddington's life and legacy. We are joined by Dr. Laurie Green, professor of history at The University of Texas at Austin.

Consumer Voice: Its Role in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

https://hogg.utexas.edu/podcast-consumer-voice

Women Make History: Maggie Kuhn and the Gray Panthers

https://hogg.utexas.edu/podcast-women-make-history-maggie-kuhn-and-the-gray-panthers

From the Archive: Efua Sutherland on Theatre, Literature and Self-rediscovery

https://hogg.utexas.edu/podcast-from-the-archive-efua-sutherland

In this episode of Into the Fold, we explore how today’s toxic political climate may be impacting mental health programs in schools, as described in a recent NBC news article entitled, “Parents protesting ‘critical race theory’ identify a new target: Mental health programs”.

We are joined by Donna Black, president of the Social Emotional Learning Alliance for Texas (SEL4TX) to discuss an educational process known as social-emotional learning, its application in schools, its positive impact on kids’ mental health, and its current mischaracterization in this time of political polarization.

Related links

Healthy Educators for Healthy Kids

http://hogg.utexas.edu/what-we-do/success-stories/student-mental-health

Mental Health in Schools

https://hogg.utexas.edu/podcast-mental-health-schools

Uproar over critical race theory should not threaten mental health in schools

https://hogg.utexas.edu/critical-race-theory-mental-health-in-schools

Mental health in schools is at a tipping point. Here is what needs to happen.

https://hogg.utexas.edu/mental-health-in-schools

In observance of Black History Month 2022, we once again reach back into the Hogg Foundation's archive of episodes of the Human Condition, the radio program that the foundation produced from 1971 to 1983. These rare conversations cover a multitude of subjects against a backdrop of rapid social change--and new developments in mental health. This episode features a revealing conversation with Roy Wilkins (1901-1981), civil rights icon and longtime leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Related links:

Episode 76: From the Archives: Dr. Kenneth Clark on Racism and Child Well-Being

https://hogg.utexas.edu/podcast-dr-kenneth-clark-on-racism-and-child-well-being

Episode 120: Why History?

https://hogg.utexas.edu/podcast-why-history

Episode 65:The Past Does Matter: Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome

https://hogg.utexas.edu/podcast-the-past-does-matter

The Hogg Foundation recently celebrated the 10th year of the Policy Academy and Policy Fellows initiative, a cornerstone initiative, which is still going strong. Hogg Policy Fellows have gone on to positions of leadership at all levels, and their collective expertise has changed mental health policy in Texas for the better. Later this month the Hogg Foundation will be releasing a report titled, "Hogg Foundation for Mental Health Policy Academy & Policy Fellow Initiative, A Retrospective on a Decade of Investment." To mark the occasion, we brought on David Johnson, criminal justice organizer for Grassroots Leadership of Texas, and an alum of the Policy Fellows program, and Colleen Horton, director of policy for the Hogg Foundation.

Related links:

Episode 75: Substance Use: A Public Health Approach

https://hogg.utexas.edu/podcast-substance-use-policy

Episode 79: Maternal Mental Health: Where Family Well-being Begins

https://hogg.utexas.edu/podcast-maternal-mental-health

Episode 108: Empowering Girls Through Policy

https://hogg.utexas.edu/podcast-empowering-girls-through-policy

Episode 116: Young and Invincible

http://hogg.utexas.edu/podcast-young-and-invincible

Episode 126: Vaccine Equity for the Incarcerated

https://hogg.utexas.edu/vaccine-equity-for-the-incarcerated

As we have explored in numerous episodes, COVID-19 has been a pandemic of inequality. For as long as the pandemic has been a mainstay in our lives, the podcast has tried to bring the Hogg Foundation’s equity lens to bear on our discussions of the pandemic’s blighting effects on mental health and well-being. We continue this equity focus with Episode 126, which looks at vaccine access for the current and formerly incarcerated. Our guest is Carl Hunter, a former Hogg Policy Fellow and current executive director of Building Promise USA, an organization dedicated to empowering the formerly incarcerated.

Related links:

Episode 97: The Inequality of COVID-19

https://hogg.utexas.edu/podcast-the-inequality-of-covid-19

Episode 113: Vaccine Equity and Trust

https://hogg.utexas.edu/podcast-vaccine-equity-and-trust

Episode 117: Vaccine Equity and Disability Rights

https://hogg.utexas.edu/podcast-vaccine-equity-and-disability-rights