Lost in Translation

Community Service Centers were based on a wonderful idea. Mental health in the 1960s and early 70s was coming to a new place, a place in which the individual was going to be considered based on their own unique life experiences. Simply, a young  African-American kid in rural Georgia would be treated differently than an elderly Caucasian man from Philadelphia. The neighborhood would be part of the solution, working in conjunction with professionals in the Service Centers to create services relevant to the consumers being served.

The beauty of CSC's was dampened somewhere in the execution. At that time in history, there were almost no minority practitioners due to continued issues with racism within education and employment sectors. That left mostly White practitioners serving some communities that were made up of 100% minority populations. This stacked the odds against practitioner-community collaboration from the very start.

Beyond this, those that designed the CSC's were not the same people that implemented the plans. Ultimately, mostly White, affluent practitioners were hired - this population of workers was unable or unwilling to connect with the diverse populations of all the CSC's. When the consumers and the workers found that they could not come to consensus, issues of racism, classism, and general cultural incompetence created a lack of trust and disappointment within the communities, and the CSC's failed to fulfill their promises.

Behind many failed attempts at greatness are truly pure intentions and phenomenal ideas. The problem lies in the execution - the resulting sculpture is not at all what the sculptor intended, although the original design was amazing. I think this has something to do with ideas becoming too big, and with the hands actually implementing the procedures being too far away, sometimes states or countries away, from the minds that designed them. Too lofty, too large, too far.

So. I propose that we all pay attention to the small ways that we can do something about the little things that we see happening around us, and fill in those holes with our own hands. I've noticed that West Philadelphia lacks for therapists, and I'm initiating a private practice in the area for the teen population to try to fill that hole (and do my work that I love, of course). I can see that's done how I hope it should be, how I envision it to be, because it's just me. It's a small idea and I think I can make it happen.

What are other holes we notice? How can we fill them? What brilliant ideas can we implement within the space of our own communities, our own streets, our own homes, that might make a lasting and worthwhile impact, tiny though it may be? This seems important to me. Isn't it though?