Neighbors Heal Together

How A Wider Circle is Bridging the Mental Health Gap in Ward 8

Therapy Interns Marques Anderson and Leilanie Morales

Building Mental Health Resources in Ward 8

When I started as A Wider Circle’s Chief Program Officer two years ago, one of my first priorities was asking our program directors about their program’s needs. When I asked YaVonne — the site director for our Ward 8 Hub — what was most needed in the neighborhood, her response was immediate and emphatic: “Mental health resources.”

The Ward 8 Hub is a special place in DC’s Washington Highlands neighborhood. It serves as a community gathering space where we deliver a wide variety of resident-driven programming. The neighborhood is a community rich in history with a legacy of resident leadership and involvement, but it has also been impacted by decades of systemic racism, intergenerational poverty and trauma, and underinvestment in both physical and mental healthcare.

Fortunately, there was a simple solution to the need for mental health resources at the Hub. I was trained as a psychologist and have maintained my professional counseling license for over a decade, which meant we met the requirements to create a training program for students in the field. So, in the fall of 2023, the Hub became a host site for two graduate students to do clinical internships each academic year.

Our training cohort for this year consisted of Leilanie Morales from the George Washington University Art Therapy program and Marques Anderson from The Chicago School’s Clinical Mental Health Counseling program. Both of them performed a mix of individual, family, and group therapy. I’m incredibly grateful that they chose A Wider Circle for their internships. Seeing them leave this month as they completed their internships was truly bittersweet.

A Wider Circle’s programming is only possible because of support from neighbors like you.

Healing From Grief and Loss

A big highlight of Marques and Leilanie’s time with us was their leadership of a three-week grief and loss therapy group in June for 18 adults. The vision for the group, Leilanie shared, was “to facilitate conversation, so people could give voice to whatever they were feeling regarding grief and loss, find community with one another, and add coping strategies to their toolkits.”

“It reminded me that it was needed, and we were needed.“

This was the first time either of them facilitated a group like this. For Marques, “it started off nerve-wracking, but to see everyone’s participation made it easy to facilitate. It reminded me that it was needed, and we were needed.” He added, “The level of participation surprised me. Grief is often a tough topic to talk about, but I saw 90 percent of the group share something they were holding close to their heart and not really sharing with anyone else. I also saw a large percentage of the group get excited about art.”

The first week of the group focused on naming and normalizing reactions to loss, while the second explored coping skills. In the third and final week, participants created art with stones and paper-mache to remember the deceased and honor their healing journey.

As the final session came to a close, Leilanie and Marques received great feedback from the attendees. “They got a lot of things from the space,” shared Leilanie, “and it was helpful for participants to hear what other people went through, realizing they were not alone.”

A Promising Start to Bridging the Mental Health Gap

The Ward 8 Hub’s clinical internship program has demonstrated the power of neighbors building community together. It not only addressed a crucial need for neighbors coping with trauma and loss but also provided an invaluable training ground for future therapists like Leilanie and Marques. Watching this program grow has been inspiring, and I am excited to see how it will continue to bridge the gap in mental health resources for Ward 8 in the years ahead.

Eddy Ameen, PhD is A Wider Circle’s Chief Program Officer. He joined A Wider Circle in June 2022. He received his PhD in Counseling Psychology from the University of Miami, and his MA in Mental Health Counseling from Boston College. Read Eddy’s full bio.