Date: Monday, March 30, 2026
Time: 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm ET
Location: Tate-Turner-Kuralt Auditorium, 1st Floor
Format: Hybrid
- Livestream via Zoom, or
- In person: UNC School of Social Work, 325 Pittsboro Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516
CE Credit: 2 CEs, read for full information on credit types awarded.
Fees: $35 (scholarships available)
Description:
Black youth face increasing rates of suicidal thoughts and behaviors, yet continue to be overlooked, misidentified, or disconnected from care within mental health systems. This training explores how to build culturally inclusive, community-informed responses that reduce risk and strengthen reasons for living. Participants will examine key patterns in suicide risk behavior among Black adolescents and the structural, systemic, and cultural barriers that shape their experiences of care. The session will highlight efforts for culturally inclusive suicide prevention efforts from the North Carolina Black Youth Suicide Prevention Youth Advisory Board and Community of Practice members. We will explore how culturally affirming prevention and intervention efforts can make life feel worth living for youth facing racialized trauma, isolation, and despair.
Learning Objectives:
At the end of the training participants will be able to:
- Describe structural, systemic, and cultural barriers that affect access to mental health care for Black youth.
- Integrate culturally inclusive, community-informed approaches into existing therapeutic frameworks to support Black youth experiencing suicidal distress.
Trainer: Sonyia Richardson, Ph.D., LCSW is an Assistant Professor at the UNC School of Social Work and holds an appointment in the UNC Department of Psychiatry. Her work centers on suicide prevention among Black youth and developing culturally inclusive interventions to make life worth living. She focuses on addressing the practical, systemic, and cultural barriers that limit access to care, and leads CA-LINC, an NIMH-funded clinical trial co-designed with Black communities to strengthen connections to mental health support. She also directs the Black Wellness Collective Lab. Before joining UNC-Chapel Hill, Dr. Richardson was a faculty member at UNC Charlotte, where she founded and directed the Mental Health Research and Practice Lab and led the Race and Social Equity Research Academy. She is the founder of Another Level Counseling and Consultation, a Charlotte-based agency that has provided clinical services, wellness programming, and consultation for more than 16 years. Dr. Richardson was appointed to North Carolina’s Andrea Harris Equity Task Force by Governor Roy Cooper and serves as Director of its Wellness Outcomes subcommittee. In 2021, she was named Social Worker of the Year by the North Carolina chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.
References:
- Richardson, S. C., Gunn, L. H., Phipps, M., & Azasu, E. (2024). Factors associated with suicide risk behavior outcomes among Black high school adolescents. Journal of Community Health, 49(3), 466–474. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-023-01312-7
- Richardson, S. C., Hales, T., Meehan, E., & Waters, A. (2022). Sexual minorities and teen suicide attempts in a southeastern state with prominent exclusionary policies. Death Studies, 46, 495–500.
- Richardson, S. C., & Gunn, L. H. (2024). Factors associated with suicide risk behavior outcomes among Black middle school adolescents. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 63(12), 1215–1224. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2024.03.019
- Richardson, S. C., Williams, J. A., Vance, M. M., Phipps-Bennett, M., Stevenson, A. P., & Herbert, R. (2024). Informing equitable prevention practices: A statewide disaggregated analysis of suicide for ethnoracially minoritized adolescents. Prevention Science, 25(3), 532–544. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-024-01654-1
- Vance, M. M., Gryglewicz, K., Nam, E., Richardson, S., Borntrager, L., & Karver, M. S. (2023). Exploring service use disparities among suicidal Black youth in a suicide prevention care coordination intervention. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, 10(5), 2231–2243. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-022-01402-7
UNC Chapel Hill – Clinical Lecture Series