Steve Martorano 

The Behavioral Corner is produced in partnership with Retreat Behavioral Health -- where healing happens.

The Behavioral Corner 

Hi, and welcome. I'm Steve Martorano. And this is the Behavioral Corner; you're invited to hang with us, as we've discussed the ways we live today, the choices we make, the things we do, and how they affect our health and wellbeing. So you're on the corner, the Behavioral Corner, please hang around a while.

Steve Martorano 

Hi, everybody, welcome again to the Behavioral Corner. I'm your host, Steve Martorano, you find me here hanging and hoping to run into interesting people. And we're really lucky we do. Behavioral Corner is about everything, everything that affects our behavioral health. And that's a lot of stuff. We've got an interesting one for you today, I hope you'll hang. Of course, it's produced in cooperation with our great partners, Retreat Behavioral Health, and you'll find out a little bit more about them later on. But they are the reason our guest is with us today. Justin Williams is a para-educator in the Harrisburg school district chapter of Pennsylvania. He is involved as program director for a statewide lifeinpa.org program whose goal is to mentor and inspire youth in today's ever-changing arts and tech industry. We'll talk to him about the work there. And he has recently been on a webinar that Retreat Behavioral Health sponsored on the issue of breaking barriers, black mental health. So we welcome Justin Williams to the Corner. How are you, Justin?

Justin Williams 

I'm great Steve, I appreciate the opportunity I love...I love the chance to hear myself speak on a subject that's dear to my heart.

Steve Martorano 

I sort of like the sound of my own voice as well. 

Justin Williams 

Honestly, I don't get too many opportunities to get public platforms to speak about something that I deal with daily. So it's definitely an honor and a privilege.

Steve Martorano 

Thank you. And I know I know, the Retreat. You know, they're the ones who said to me, you got to talk to...you got to talk to Justin, he's gonna be on our webinar, by the way, this show will be put up on the website after the webinar is taking place. But so I can't tell you to tune in, but it's there on the Retreat Behavioral Health website, it's archived there. Again, the title is Breaking Barriers: Black Mental Health, I'd urge you to go check it out. Because I'm sure that they'll give you a lot more information that Justin and I are going to try to touch upon hearing the limited time that we have. So, Justin, you spent a better part of your career, probably your entire career, working with and helping, mentoring, inspiring children at risk, primarily from people of color communities. So I wanted to focus on those issues and the mental health crisis that we're hearing about in that community. So let's begin there. In your experience, how big a crisis, is it in that community?

Justin Williams 

Pretty big to answer your question meaning like, it's something that's never been addressed. So imagine over the centuries, you know, of trauma that we've endured, and not being able to publicly address it with empathetic and sympathetic ears and actually, it's just now going to find out what a generation looks like who was being heard out.

Steve Martorano 

Yeah, it would be great to be able to see, you know, I mean, there are many generations that already were ignored and fell through the cracks. And that's horrible. Maybe we can start to work on the next one, that it's a better shot yet. The pandemic was not good for anybody, but it really fell hard upon certain communities in our country. The kids you've been working with your career, in your very capacities, what age range are they?

Justin Williams 

Well, as far as my career I've done everything from preschool to high school age. So my range of dealing with kids have gone through every school age range, and some even before then even family as far as my family members have things. But it's, I come from a very interesting city. I'm not sure if you've ever visited Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, but it's a capital city, of course, but it's small, with less than 50,000 people, and a 95% black population within the city limits. So that's a very weird dynamic when a lot of the business that goes on in that city is legislation. A lot of people come in from other cities, towns, places do their business at the capital city, and then they go back out. And then in our city, we're still plagued with a lot of the same urban environment and situation with school districts. You know, I mean, I can go over to spills over and over again. But we know that it's all pretty much to scale. So Harrisburg per capita is crime-wise, per capita is one of the worst in the state, and let alone the country. So the murder rate, the crime rate is very high for a small city -- the major city so it's conflicted with a lot of things. Where it has all the potential -- all the money comes through, but it's still left unattended in places like school districts and small businesses in...

Steve Martorano 

Harrisburg is not the only place that is an island of white men, primarily, making decisions that affect the lives of everyone in their area. They're surrounded by people of color, who have...

Justin Williams 

My wife is from New York. So I had to explain to her coming down to this area, that there are a million Harrisburgs in between here in LA.

Steve Martorano 

The greatest example of what you just described as in the nation's capital DC, is pretty much you know, Harrisburg on steroids. Let me...let me ask you about the, you say, the age range of these kids in crisis, that you've been dealing with your career, you know, go from the little ones up. I remember seeing in my favorite season of my favorite television show, The Wire, which was the year they dealt with the schools. I've never seen anything as moving and as real as those episodes. And if you recall, storyline and one of the storylines -- during that year, a researcher from one of the universities in Maryland wants to see at what point they can provide services and intervene to save young black men's lives. And he guesses, "Well, I think if we catch him at 15, or 16, maybe we could do something. And he is shocked when he runs into the first 15 year old who's so damaged. He's almost beyond repair. And I remember the character of Bunny says to him, "You want to try a little younger brother?" In your view, I mean, I know the answer is as early as you can but is there a point where if you don't intervene in some meaningful way, you're going to lose that kid?

Justin Williams 

Absolutely. Okay. I'm glad you asked that. So good aspects to The Wire, a connection to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Omar from The Wire, he's connected with Harrisburg. He is not a native, but he's a native son and very connected as well, and in his passing, The Wire is a very well-represented space of some of those places. That's why it's able to be talked about almost 20 odd years later. It's a very crucial point to catch a kid at the point of influence where they're influenced by popular culture by other things where you're able as the sensible adult, to be able to influence that kid. And in our experience, and when you check out our website lifeinpa.org. There's a segment where we have a STEAM Camp where we -- shout out to my brother, John -- John Trey Williams. We work together to build within the school district, that camp that builds those skills of project-based learning. We built one project that was based around HBCUs. So we took the whole school and we created net-based knowledge about HBCUs and college awareness. And we create a whole project and a showcase. And when you go to the website, you'll be able to see more we did.

Steve Martorano 

I looked at the website. It's very impressive.

Justin Williams 

And...thank you. And so what we did there was with middle school kids, and we found out that they were the ones that were most impressionable. But they can also do the tasks they can take on the information they can process, if you give it to them at the right rate in the right place, giving them enough time and space to be creative that by the time come out the other end there'll be better for it. And there is a point where it's too late to pick up a skill and be as proficient as someone who picked it up years before and that goes with athletics. We know that with athletics. It's easy with athletics to say, as early as they can pick up a ball and dribble and shoot. And that's when they're ready. To the time it takes to groom a musician or artist or a computer technician, it takes time it takes, and there's raw ability. But if you're not nurturing that, if you don't think that that person is ready to do that, or it can consume that you won't offer it. So you know...

Steve Martorano 

Do you know what I mean? It's so obvious. You know, it should explain itself. Very few people take up the piano at 30. You got to learn to play piano, you've got to start when you're seven or eight.

Justin Williams 

But if you pick up the piano at 30, it takes the same amount of discipline. 

Steve Martorano 

Oh, yeah. 

Justin Williams 

That it did when you picked it up at six. It doesn't change with like, the algorithm doesn't change. 

Steve Martorano 

Yeah. 

Justin Williams 

Oh, the same principle. So now (cough) excuse me, we adapt that principle to sooner than later. Does that make sense?

Steve Martorano 

Well, you know what I mean, one of the things that I'm struck by and looking at your work with lifeinpa.org, and your work with, you know, as a para-educator in the Harrisburg School District, is your emphasis on culture and music, and technology. And when I first looked at the description of these programs, it says on the website that they are STEAM-based, and I went, "Wait a minute, I've heard of STEM." So you added the A for the arts, right?

Justin Williams 

Right. So yeah, science, technology, engineering, arts, and then math. So in what's always hard to explain to a bureaucrat or a technical person, is how much of that is involved in the creative process. And I have to know a lot of science -- I'm a musician. And I do, I'm a drummer, but I'm also I do music, production, engineering, and things like that, and also teach, but there's so much science that you have to understand, in order just to do that creatively. And there's a process in that there's a level of math and literacy that comes with everything. So anyone who is producing music, meaning playing an instrument at a proficient level, is exercising some part of that STEAM aspect.

Steve Martorano 

Yeah, you know, what's great about this, I mean, you know, kids grow up, whether it's inner-city people of color kids, or you know, white kids in the suburbs. And unfortunately, we often give them a very limited or very narrow view of what's possible, "Oh, man, you could play baseball, or maybe, maybe you could be a singer." You know, kids in the inner city thing, the only thing to be in show business is maybe a rapper or an entertainer. And, as you said, there's a whole range of jobs that have to do with technical skills, and math and all that stuff that they have never been exposed to.

Justin Williams 

And what and what's very important is to understand that Harrisburg is a legislative town like DC. So but it's not as large or connected it so you don't, you're not able to have the facets of the industry that come out of there. So now everyone else who was outside of LA, New York, now Atlanta, Houston, different places like that, have to learn how to reproduce that without an industry inside the city. And now that we have the internet and technology is it's easier, but it's -- it's a different process. So so now we have kids who have it, we have to teach them skills in order to get into certain industries because that industry doesn't exist here in apprenticeships and those types of things won't exist. So again, it's so you have to bake that into your education system. bake that into your small businesses and things because there are great creative. I love my city. My city is so creative, and I feel like it because of its surroundings...

Steve Martorano 

Yeah, yeah, it's not easy -- obviously, it's a case of the city being in the proverbial, you know, in the middle of nowhere. But there are so many kids that you described in Harrisburg, in other places, Philadelphia, Chicago. Los Angeles was surrounded by all of this and still is cut off...cut off from it. Because nobody ever said, "You can do this, we'll show you how you can do this." Right? So it may be a small city. But it's a big idea. And it's applicable all over the place.

Justin Williams 

I think the main word that I keep in my conversations, no matter who I'm speaking with, is making sure that we keep the conversation on access. Like what is the access and how is the access being created it because, again, Philadelphia has this, and there is a wide avenue of access. But they also baked that into their school system, their school, whole high school dedicated, like, there are things that these cities are, again, we're going to have youth that falls through the cracks, meaning like we have to figure out the displacement. It's not about entertainment. It's not about just the arts or design, science of those things. There are trades and laborers that we need to figure out how to support and this is all industry-related. So again, with Harrisburg, what they're building and working on is a film commission. And once you have a film commission in the city, and then it comes back. That right there creates union jobs of people in an area who have skills, or have backgrounds, and now have small business support. It's a microcosm of small things that kind of need to be in place for it to be sustainable. If those things aren't being thought about on the grassroots level, a lot of times. What's going on in Philly, or LA or New York or anywhere else, is just because they have access to it.

Steve Martorano 

Yes, yeah, sure. We're talking to Justin Williams, he's an educator in the Harrisburg School District, and as a Program Director of this wonderful nonprofit lifeinpa.org, you should check out their website. It's very exciting, see what they're doing there. And, you know, I want to move on to some of the mental health issues that you may not specifically have to deal with...

Justin Williams 

Oh, I do actually, I'm in...

Steve Martorano 

So then you can talk to with first-hand knowledge with some of the things. But before we get to the, to the mental health piece, I do, since we've been talking about, you know, art and culture. And now we're past the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl Halftime Show, that's in some ways was supposed to be earth-shaking and groundbreaking. NFL suddenly discovered hip hop, you know, 30 years later. And so it was a hip-hop show. It was an utter people of color-centric - oh, I shouldn't say that - because hip hop is so mainstream. It's ridiculous. But you know what? It was a bit, what did you think of that show is what I'm trying to say.

Justin Williams 

Right. And just a small life perspective, just it may be -- this is all not a rebuttal to what you're saying ut a perspective of this is when access is created. So now we have to look back a couple of years back way, all the way back to when Colin Kaepernick went through what he went through an introduction of conversation, and then Jay Z getting involved and certain people had to go through the same process that America has to go through of processing, what's going on and what's missing. But again, there's more work to be done the halftime show and the people in these places, please understand, that's not the pendulum that number. Right. But, and that whole perspective thing and using as in principle, it's that this took time, it was a long time coming. It wasn't awaking up, just popping in. So again, when you allow access, what great things can happen. 

Steve Martorano 

Right, right. And you're right..l.

Justin Williams 

One of the best halftime shows, ever. It just was. It was. And again, if you're unaware of the culture, it's at least spectacle -- as a spectacle in which he's watching what you saw. It was it was great. 

Steve Martorano 

Snd it's just a great way of framing it, Justin, I mean, you know, they don't come out there, recreate South Central Los Angeles, do their songs. And have, you know, Eminem, take a knee at the end. That didn't just happen. You're right. It's a process that began way back. And in terms of where it needs to go. I don't have to tell you. We're not even at halftime. We got along...

Steve Martorano 

Right. Right, right.

Steve Martorano 

We're not even a long way to go. All right, let's let's pivot a little bit because you do have, you know, in order to get to these kids, and expose them to arts and culture and technology and to broaden their horizon, you got to get through a lot of baggage that they're carrying around with them. Kids who grow up in deprived circumstances, the inner city, overwhelmingly, obviously, kids of color are traumatized across the board. What is the kind of mental health issues you run into with some of these kids?

Justin Williams 

Well, before I got into the school district, I was working in independent childcare. So I was part of a center that worked through all ages, started off as a care professional, and then moved up to a director inside that facility. But it starts -- it can start as early as, you know, five, four, or five years old when you're able to connect memories and emotions at the same time. So it's hard to say, but when a parent is suffering from mental illness or something, these are generational things that are being passed on unattended. So you, you know, you see a grown woman, giving her five-year-old kid the cold shoulder to pick up their sibling. They're walking in the same room, and they're both a five-year-old and a grown person giving each other the cold shoulder not we're not speaking. Yeah, and there's a lot of other mental things that are going on with the adult. And then the kid goes on. And as that kid grew that stuck, you know, I mean, no matter what in the trauma kept going on things were under duress. So again it's hard to sit here and say, what, one individual or what as a community a person is going through, but if left unattended, or even as the family doesn't see the problem, or support the scenario or situation, it continues, and it goes on for generations. So it kind of we have to get to the point where it's okay. Like to say that something's not wrong, right, or any...

Steve Martorano 

We'll let me ask you about this because there are a couple of things that are, you know, obviously, barriers to people getting help. First of all, they have to be aware something's wrong. And the do you often see a kind of hesitancy or, you know, a statement saying, "Well, I'm going to talk to somebody because I'm unhappy with, are you kidding me? Everything's bad." Right? No, do you have to overcome that, right?

Justin Williams 

Well, yeah, I think as a community we've coping has started a long time ago in different ways. And we found ways to vent and...and but the thing is that things in the places and how we vent and cope aren't reliable resources to give you something back, you know, is, you know, when we go to the barbershop, or we said we go to church or certain things may not be the isolated space for your individual trauma or whatever you're going through. That makes sense. 

Steve Martorano 

Yeah, does. 

Justin Williams 

So again, we use a lot of general anesthesia for a lot of our things that we go through food, music, entertainment, these things to express ourselves but we're still not addressing you know, the elephant...

Steve Martorano 

You know, what, it's not confined, although it's probably worse in the inner city or in the, you know, inner-city communities. But it's an old-school notion that you don't suck it up, man up, you know, or laugh it off? Or, you know, or something. Instead of going, "Oh, you made that image about the five-year-old? And is the mom not being able to relate? You're right, that's gonna become the way they're gonna have trouble with relationships, the rest of their lives.

Justin Williams 

Correct. it trusts. Trust is a very big thing when you're talking about healing from anything. So now I have to trust that when I speak to this person, that you know, I, you know, there's a lot of trusts involved. And so when you break that trust, through family or friends or things like that, it becomes harder. And when no one listens to you kind of it's easier to go. Well, I'd rather not speak about it since no one's going to listen, because a lot of us are taught in it's supported. That don't go cry that way because no one's listening. 

Steve Martorano 

No one is listening. Right.

Justin Williams 

You need to make sure that you're able to take care. And that is now as we go generation to generation, our entitlement which we are entitled to. Our entitlement is what's conflicting with our -- our perception of what's going on. It's like, why are we still experiencing these things in this way? And...

Steve Martorano 

Yeah, but you know, that's good, you know, as tragic as that circumstance is, it does represent a tiny move forward. Because there was a time when in those communities, people just thought this is the way it is. Right?

Justin Williams 

I mean, and...but rightfully so. It was, it was the way it was. It was rightfully so. No one was over exaggerating, or undermining, like, it was an in I don't even want to use the word complacency. But it was, after certain events and certain things happened. It was kind of set in stone that...

Steve Martorano 

It was a resignation. This is the way this is.

Justin Williams 

This is the game that we're playing. 

Steve Martorano 

Yeah, right. Exactly. I don't think enough people understand when we say, folks like you who are experts in it, and others who've seen sort of think about it, that children growing up, no matter what color they are, but children growing up in extreme poverty, surrounded by drugs, and violence, whether any of that direct if whether they're directly involved in any of that. They're still traumatized. I mean, you must know young people who have this is terrible, have seen more dead bodies in real life than most of the rest of us.

Justin Williams 

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a reality. I was as young as 12 to lose a friend to gun violence. And probably by the time, I was 13 -- 14, seeing someone get shot. So I am not an anomaly. Does that make sense? 

Steve Martorano 

Yeah, you're not unusual. 

Justin Williams 

It's one of those types of things that the problem that comes with the order, the trauma that comes with is the sensor to take the desensitize from. So now it's kind of breaking...breaking that, that cycle that goes because again, I know for a fact that I've been to enough funerals I know enough, kids, I've seen enough kids hurt. I know the pain is there and the desire not to feel that way. But when you're left with, again, I use the word access, but also, when you feel lack of options, there's no other option, I have no other choice in the matter when you're left at a young age. It really limits the things that can happen. It's almost in you know, so these systemic things are just sitting right here at the edge of and ready to be knocked over at any point.

Steve Martorano 

Yeah, the real tragedy of that occurs to me, I wonder how you feel. It's not so much the kids are going to experience violence, as you did see people shot, lose friends and become violent themselves. Although some do. The worst event -- the worst occurrence is what you just said. They suddenly start to think this is the way it is. This is normal. This is my life. When it's not normal. And they have...

Justin Williams 

It's completely preventable like 100% preventable. 

Steve Martorano 

Exactly. 

Justin Williams 

And it's--it's one of those things that I have to first and be clear, my parents were -- were doing their best to set you to know, set up a house that their kids didn't have to go through any of those things, just when you're in such a small confined place, and limited options and things like that. So but again, it just takes a process when I say I'm lucky. I am lucky to not like you know, I think I'm scared to be here today to have this conversation. 

Steve Martorano 

Well, you're in the right place. Justin. Justin Williams, the program director for lifeinpa.org. I urge people to go look at. It's a terrific website. It but so I understand lifeinpa.org - you guys are reaching out to the entire Commonwealth. It's not just the Harrisburg community?

Justin Williams 

So no, we were originated in Erie. And we, we basically took our relationships with different people in different areas to do workshops and clinics and camps and create those relationships in place in those places. And we actually extended into Asbury Park, New Jersey. 

Steve Martorano 

Oh, good. 

Justin Williams 

Where we had a camp. Before COVID came, we had a standing camp there for five years. So we -- that was our base thing where we're doing clinicians, training, camps, workshops, and just connecting with the local -- a lot of time a lot of local churches with assists in school districts have been receptive to the programming thing.

Steve Martorano 

Yeah. So if any of those organizations or even private people want to find out maybe how to get involved, bring something like this to their community. They just go to the website, check it out, right?

Justin Williams 

Absolutely reach out to us and tell us what we do their ideas, and we scale the programming. And we have an excellent engineer in our mist. His name is Rob Shoaf. He's our partner. Great. And what's lovely about Robin, this conversation that we're in, he's a 45-year-old, white male, MIT graduate, but he's very aware of community-based situations. And we have these conversations regularly. That's why and we had and I teach him things, he teaches me things or it gives me perspective of what he's seeing and how he's seeing these issues. But I'm glad to hear that, you know, these conversations being had without us, you know, being the only word.

Steve Martorano 

Justin, thanks so much for your time. I know you're busy. And I urge everybody to check out the website for lifeinapa.org And also look on Retreat Behavioral Health's homepage, you'll see events, scroll down, and you'll see the webinar they did it'll be up there by then called Breaking Barriers: Black Mental Health. So thanks again. And everybody thanks you all for your time. Don't forget to follow us, Facebook, Instagram, follow us in your car, like us. And catch us next time on the Behavior Corner. Take care bye-bye.

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