NEWARK — When gymnastics legend Simone Biles suddenly pulled out of Olympic competition last week, citing a need to focus on her mental health, it prompted two concurrent yet divergent conversations.
One, was she neglecting her duty to team and country by refusing to push through and compete, and two, is mental health stigma in sports finally going to be broken down.
Ashanti Jones, community engagement manager for the Newark-based New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, said someone does not have to actively be in crisis to seek mental health treatment. It's always a conversation worth having.
That's especially important to remember, Jones said, for Black youth in New Jersey, who are incarcerated at nearly 18 times the rate of white juveniles.
The Institute has issued a new toolkit, "Investing in Youth, Not Incarceration," that combines statistics with suggestions to get kids out of youth prisons and into mental health care programs.
According to the Institute's data, New Jersey spends an average of $445,504 to incarcerate one juvenile for one year.
That money not only could be better used elsewhere, Jones said, but it could also help to halt a cycle of recidivism, substance abuse, and suicidal ideation, for dozens of kids at a time.
"$350,000 for mental health services for 40 young people versus $445,000 to incarcerate a single one," Jones said. "Those are the type of numbers that we're looking at right now."
The toolkit calls for more "community cafés," described in the literature as "safe spaces for conversations, typically hosted by parents or community volunteers."
Jones said there should also be more and better liaisons between the youth population and mental health organizations, along with a "culturally competent" telehealth line grounded in critical race theory.
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