Shonita Roach & the Multicultural Maternal Mental Health Conference
Shonita Roach, the founder of Shades of You and Shades of Me, is making significant strides in empowering and supporting multicultural maternal mental health. With her upcoming conference in October 2023, Shonita aims to provide a platform for dialogue, education, and healing for individuals from diverse backgrounds.
Shonita Roach's journey in advocating for multicultural maternal mental health began with her own experience. Shonita realized the lack of awareness and support within her community. She founded Shades of You and Shades of Me in 2019, aiming to address the unique mental health challenges faced by BIPOC.
Multicultural maternal mental health is an essential aspect of mental healthcare. Cultures, traditions, and beliefs play a crucial role in shaping individuals' experiences of motherhood and mental health. However, systemic racial structures often lead to the marginalization and erasure of these cultural practices, impacting the well-being of mothers and their families.
Taking place from October 17th to 19th at the Embassy Suites Seattle, Washington Airport International, the 2023 Multicultural Maternal Mental Health Conference aims to provide a safe and inclusive space for individuals from all cultural backgrounds to discuss, learn, and heal.
Buy tickets to the 2023 Multicultural Maternal Mental Health Conference
Read more about Shonita and Shades of You, Shades of Me (SOYSOM) below.
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Rebecca: Sweet we're recording. Awesome. So I'm really excited to meet you. I really admire the work that you do. Shonita, you have you are the founder of Shades of You and Shades of Me. Tell me more about what you have coming up.
Shonita: Yes. The 2023 Multicultural Maternal Mental Health Care Conference coming up on October 17th - 19th in Seattle, Washington. It's located at the Embassy Suites Seattle, Washington Airport International.
Rebecca: Oh, sweet. I've been there. So, we are always talking about coffee or other bevies of choice. Are you a coffee or tea person?
Shonita: I am a person who likes to drink tea. So I go for like, a green tea, a lavender, or orange blossom.
Rebecca: What's been feeding your mind lately? Any music you might be into right now, any books that have been influencing you, podcasts, or, role models that inspire you.
Shonita: It's amazing, how I can look at inspiration everywhere, like across the board. So I wouldn't say that there is necessarily one thing that, like, piques my interest outside of culture. Culture really, like, speaks to me. So I look for it in art. So I'm a person who loves to go to art fairs and art galleries. I am a person who, loves to hear people speak poetry.
Rebecca: Do you write poetry?
Shonita: I am not a poet myself. So I like artsy things. As my sister says, I'm a little quirky.
Rebecca: Do you have any, like, maybe local poets or poets that you like to listen to.
Shonita: There's, a poet. His name is Just Mike. And he's a spiritual poet that I've hired several times, and he lives in Chicago. And, he does spiritual poetry. It's so uplifting because he uplifts women. He uplifts his lived in experience as well as the spiritual component. So when I listen to poetry, I listen for a spiritual component in there that I can add to my life.
Rebecca: That's awesome. So why do you do what you do, Shanita? What inspired you to found Shades of You, Shades of Me? And if you'd like to talk about the experience, founding it, and how it started?
Shonita: Oh, yes. So I'm a mother of 3 boys, live living boys. But my journey didn't start there. My journey started at the age of 19 when I had my first son. And, I didn't know what postpartum depression was nor postpartum psychosis. And, unfortunately, I would have had a 23 year old son, as of October this year. However, he isn't here, because of passing away, and the incident that occurred, which led to me being incarcerated, temporarily for his, passing. But that is one reason why I am an advocate to this day for postpartum depression; for incarcerated bodies; for women who experience psychosis; multicultural maternal mental health. Because oftentimes, what's embedded in our cultures shouldn't be, such as incarceration, foster care systems, things that are really counterproductive. When we say culture when I think of culture, I think of traditions, rituals, inheritance, things that are passed down culturally, from our ancestors to the next generation.
However, when you have systematic racial structures Embedded in cultures, oftentimes, the passing down of information, tradition, and rituals are broken.
Rebecca: What following up on traditions and and rituals, would you like to share? Some that you have been practicing and have been passed on to you?
Shonita: So one thing that I practice is I practice prayer and I practice meditation. I had the blessing of being adopted by a pastor, an evangelist. So, again, oftentimes in black cultures, it's church. And so we did a lot of church. And, so it was a lot of prayer. It was a lot of meditation. So I oftentimes, mainly every day, find myself in a place of prayer and in a place of meditation because I believe that that helps me to guide my day and to also be available to whatever it is that may within my day, whether it's something that I easily identify and resonate with that could be easily resolved. Or something that could be a little bit more challenging. But I am absolutely, approaching it with a place of peace And a place of being open to receive whatever it is that I need to and sort it out and be able to resolve it.
Rebecca: Do you practice writing through that or because you've mentioned poetry, does that connect you?
Shonita: No. I don't write poetry. This is gonna sound funny. Okay, but, I actually write sermons. So it's crazy because, like, as I said, my background is that my dad was a pastor. My adoptive father was.
He was a pastor. So it's this one story of when he passed away, and my dad had a den within our house. And I'll never forget. How I did not, like, really appreciate being the child of the family that had to get up and give spiritual, scriptures in front of the church. I was that child out of the family. So it was, like, mandated that this was something that I had to do. So much. So, when he passed away, I found myself in his den And reading all of the the sermon notes that he had and scriptures and just like eating it As if it were just books and scrolls of information. So, oftentimes when I'm writing, scriptures or sermons or even, some of the things that I say I often reflect back To that day when I was reading all that he had in his den, and I use it today even in my arsenal.
Rebecca: Where do you see, Shades of You and Shades of Me going after you've built it? Where do you think it's headed?
Shonita: So, you know, when It was first formed in 2019, meaning that was our 1st, official conference. I had no clue where it was going. Right? I was just a mother And a woman who was hurting from a lived experience, which you would think after, it occurred in 2002 that it would have been something resolved. But 17 years later, I could not release it. I couldn't let it go even if I even when I was in therapy, amongst friends, support groups. It just dwelled with me, and it hurt. So I said, if I'm hurting, obviously, other people must be sharing this too.
So I created the platform of a Conference invited people and speakers, and it went wonderful. Then afterwards, It's like, we really enjoyed that conference. Are you doing it again next year? I was like, I guess so. I did it awful. I did it off a personal experience, and I felt really good after that. But then the outreach that came after that, just let me know that I wasn't in this alone, that it was absolutely A platform not just for me, but shared and appreciated in so many other areas of people. And so that's what gave me the momentum to care to create the 2020, and then so on and so forth. That's how we're here now.
And so where I see it going is we always talk about culture. We absolutely have a conversation. And so the the next step is cultivation. How do we We apply the information that is already there. And we need that information as we continue to include Culture. As we continue to break down barriers, take away stigmas and stereotypes. So Shades of You Shades of Me not only has created this platform of conference, but we're also creating conversations abroad International. One of the things that we will be incorporating, next year is campaigns.
So we'll be uplifting and adding more tools of awareness of what does that mean to multicultural BIPOC people in Maternal Mental Health. Also, another thing that we'll be adding is, a consulting service or training for people with lived experience. Oftentimes, I'm asked, Shonita, how did you overcome? You know, all of the things that you went through in your life, your childhood trauma to where you are now? And after being asked that question for so many years, I'm like, let's create a program and empower people who have lived in experience to be able to add not only advocate for themselves, but to be able to see the value within their story. And so that's the powerful tool of, storytelling. But it's also a powerful tool to state that you have overcome your trauma. And that you absolutely, find value within your story and your experience. But then they it also creates a platform for you to be able to get further. So and so that's the training piece and component.
So that's something we'll be doing for, like, 6 months and following into certification to, also make a little consultant.
Rebecca: That's amazing. Wow. I love where that's going. On that note, I had a follow-up question which fits perfectly for this. What would you like people to take away from this conference, that's coming up and maybe future ones?
Shonita: Oh, the the takeaway is always, how can we continue to raise awareness around this? Right? Because all we did was just start a conversation. The conversation continues as more people come forth Or more research, is available, more medication, pharmaceutical. So we need all hands on deck when we're creating conversations like this and when we're raising awareness. So we need it from the person with the lived experience, from the caregiver that's impacted, we need it from the policymaker that's going forth with additional legislation. We need it from the the medical practitioner. We need it across the whole scope, even across the globe. That's the reason why we call it multiculturalism, because it's not just 1 culture that's impacted or affected, but multicultural people are affected across the board, so we need one another.
Rebecca: Who is this conference for?
Shonita: So my nonprofit. It's, again, for multicultural people. So when I think of women, again, who have lived experience, for families who have been impacted by maternal mental health outcomes such as barriers and stigmas. It's also for the lawmaker who doesn't understand the impact that multicultural people go through when they're entering into, maternal health system health care systems. It's also for the, medical practitioner, how we could get together resources And and put together projected outcomes that do not directly impact nor target people of color As they are seeking the same treatment, and we take away those biases that are already within the infrastructure. So that is who, we tar will not target, but that is who we collaborate with and we partner with to get more training and, again, to raise awareness around some of these implicit biases.
Rebecca: Thank you. Do you have a a list yet or announce, like, who's gonna be speaking at the conference?
Shonita: Oh, absolutely. So one of our keynote her name is Andrea Horton. She is the director of Prenatal Alliance through the PSI, international organization. So she'll be one of our keynote speakers. She'll be talking about, clinicians and therapists as they can continue to be a part of raising awareness, in the systematic structures. Also, we'll have a international virtual speaker. Her name is Dr. Shereen Soliman, and she'll be coming from a lactation perspective of, storage of milk and the, cultural biases that already exist within milk storage for people of color. And then we'll have, someone from the indigenous community in which we're not releasing right now who'll be talking about indigenous missing persons.
So, Again, it's always about culture, conversation, and cultivation.
Rebecca: Awesome. It sounds like a really great list. My last question for you is, what do you think other people should know about this organization. Somebody who is just, finding out about it for the first time.
Shonita: I think people should know that, this conference was created for people like me and people like them. What do I mean by that? A person with a lived in experience who just got tired Of seeing myself on bulletin boards, but not actually being a part of the conversation. I went to so many conferences, and all I saw was bullet points and presentations. And I was like, I am not a bullet point, And I'm definitely not a presentation. I am a person. And because I'm a person, let's talk to the people and who they're speaking of. And so I want to speak to the people who have been dated, surveyed and tired of it all.
Drink 🫖
What is Shonita’s go-to drink?
“I am a person who likes to drink tea. So I go for like, a green tea, a lavender, or orange blossom.”
Listening To 🎧
What is Shonita listening to at the moment?
“There's, a poet. His name is Just Mike. And he's a spiritual poet that I've hired several times, and he lives in Chicago. And, he does spiritual poetry. It's so uplifting because he uplifts women. He uplifts his lived in experience as well as the spiritual component. So when I listen to poetry, I listen for a spiritual component in there that I can add to my life.”
Your Truth 🗣️
What is a Shonita’s truth? What inspired her to found Shades of You, Shades of Me (SOYSOM)?
“So I'm a mother of 3 boys, live living boys. But my journey didn't start there. My journey started at the age of 19 when I had my first son. And, I didn't know what postpartum depression was nor postpartum psychosis. And, unfortunately, I would have had a 23 year old son, as of October this year. However, he isn't here, because of passing away, and the incident that occurred, which led to me being incarcerated, temporarily for his, passing. But that is one reason why I am an advocate to this day for postpartum depression; for incarcerated bodies; for women who experience psychosis; multicultural maternal mental health. Because oftentimes, what's embedded in our cultures shouldn't be, such as incarceration, foster care systems, things that are really counterproductive. When we say culture when I think of culture, I think of traditions, rituals, inheritance, things that are passed down culturally, from our ancestors to the next generation.”
Your Plug 🔌
What is Shonita plugging today?
Go to the 2023 Multicultural Maternal Mental Health Conference
More about the Multicultural Maternal Mental Health Conference
The Multicultural Maternal Mental Health Conference seeks to foster meaningful dialogue around how to enhance the quality of maternal mental healthcare for minority populations, while simultaneously reducing the stigma attached to them. Our target audiences include licensed mental health professionals, university students with an interest in mental health, non-profit professionals, social workers, nurses, educators, consumers and their families, maternal mental health advocates, community health organizers, and religious leaders. We welcome everyone to join us in this important conversation, and look forward to hearing a variety of perspectives.
Buy tickets to the 2023 Multicultural Maternal Mental Health Conference
More about Shonita Roach
Shonita Roach is a highly respected expert in the field of trauma-informed care and lived experiences. With over a decade of experience in the mental health field, Shonita has developed a deep understanding of the effects of trauma on individuals, families, and communities. She is passionate about helping others overcome the challenges of trauma and is committed to promoting awareness and education around this important issue.
Website: https://www.soysom.com/founder
