Join State Support and your colleagues in Alexandria, MN on Wednesday evening, November 2, 2022, at 7:00 p.m. as we kick-off the 2022 Legal Services Statewide Conference. Our featured speaker for the first night of the conference is Dr. Remi Douah, founder and executive director of 846s.org.
Dr. Douah is a Fulbright Scholar who hails from the Ivory Coast, West Africa, and a public health professional with experience in health systems strengthening, human-centered design, community health, disease surveillance, and research evaluation and monitoring. He has partnered with stakeholders in academic institutions, ministries of health, non-governmental organizations, and business and healthcare industries in Africa and the Caribbean to present and provide innovative and integrated public health solutions to address chronic and infectious diseases. Dr. Douah is currently an affiliate of the Minnesota Center for Design at the College of Design, University of Minnesota.
In recent years, and since the murder of George Floyd on May 25th, 2020, Dr. Douah has shifted his focus to address BIPOC mental health issues triggered by intergenerational racial trauma. Consequently, Dr. Douah established 846s.org in 2020 to focus on BIPOC youth-led initiatives for violence prevention, safety, mental health, and wellness. He utilizes his public health and human-centered design experiences to address mental health within the framework of social determinants of health, and co-creates a safe and nurturing environment to help BIPOC youth break down the stigma associated with accessing mental health therapy.
In his kick-off plenary, Prioritizing Mental Health in Underserved Communities, Dr. Douah will discuss how black, marginalized, and underserved communities experience historical barriers that prevent them from accessing mental health care. Dr. Douah will talk about his work helping these communities overcome barriers to care and to finding culturally competent therapists and mental health referral services. He will describe what he has found most important in his extensive work with marginalized communities in South Minneapolis, and will help us understand how we can implement mental health care principles into our interactions with our clients.
Stay-tuned for more information about this year’s conference, Mental Health and Legal Practice: A Holistic View, at Arrowwood Resort and Conference Center, November 2 - 4, 2022. Registration will open in mid-September.