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Inspiring Conversations with Tiffany Bishop & Whitney Coble of Raising Resilience Counseling Services

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tiffany Bishop & Whitney Coble. Them and their team share their story with us below:

Raising Resilience is led by Tiffany Bishop and Whitney Coble. We are licensed mental health therapists with a certification from Postpartum Support International in perinatal mental health. Tiffany and Whitney are both certified in trauma-informed care and various modalities of psychotherapy. “We had a strong passion to help and provide a safe place for black women”. 

Our earlier years began with us working with children. We discovered through our work with doing therapy with children and making an impact in their lives that adults often don’t have that space to feel emotionally safe. When Tiffany became a mom herself, we knew we had a niche and specialty to provide quality care and therapy for black women through our various life stages. 

Raising Resilience started in 2018 as a local effort to bridge the gap by providing new moms with support groups and reduced-fee mental health services. In the following years, the community continued to grow, along with the services provided. From delivering essential items in person in our bi-weekly postpartum support groups, Raising Resilience looks for innovative ways to reach birthing individuals in need across the nation. Virtual support groups for perinatal, infant loss, general mental health, LGBTQ+, and teen support allow members access to a safe space to share their experiences with like-minded peers. Virtual methods of reaching clients have been fundamental during the COVID-19 pandemic, with over 3,200 clients being served virtually since 2020. As for in-person services, over 1,500 clients have visited the office to pick up supplies, attend support sessions, and receive healthcare services. 

Raising Resilience bridges the gap between appropriate diagnosis, decreasing bias, education, and mental health services dedicated to Black women during pregnancy and postpartum. 

Raising Resilience’s primary objective is to provide mental health services and education to women ages 25 to 45 in underserved communities to have better health and mental health outcomes during their pregnancy and the postpartum period. Also, we have a program dedicated to teenage mothers that focuses on mental health, financial support, childcare resources, and several resource support. 

Quarterly, we select seven to eight mothers to be a part of our mom’s support circle. The goal of our mom’s support circle is to create a tight-knit community of mothers who meet weekly to support and allow us to create better outcomes for Black women with their transition into motherhood. 

In addition, we have created an innovative app that bridges technology and mental health. Our app allows women to have direct access to mental health support, community, health and mental directories, workshops, and several resources needed during the perinatal period. We also provide training for health providers and create a streamlined support method for women to have access to mental health care. Our motherhood circle program and teen mother program both offer incentives for women and teens who participate as well as an annual community graduation program for participants. 

Raising Resilience primarily serves Black women due to the lack of culturally competent therapists who specialize in maternal mental health for Black women. The organization serves Black women in Charlotte, N.C, and DC. Community. Women served are trying to conceive, expecting, or in their postpartum period. We also serve mothers who have experienced infant loss, currently have a child in the NICU, or are experiencing fertility challenges. Women who participate in our programs are possibly uninsured, experiencing mental health challenges due to recently giving birth, not having adequate access to resources in their community, or facing stressors related to childbirth and financial stress. Through our program, our therapists and support staff are intentional about providing a safe emotional space for women that often would be overlooked and suffer in silence. 

Raising Resilience is diligent in partnering with community stakeholders, hospitals, OB/GYNs, and pediatricians to improve access to Black women who are in need of mental health services and resources during the postpartum period. 

The goal of Raising Resilience is to improve birthing and mental health outcomes for Black women. We offer education on mental health services and community resources. We also want black women to have knowledge about maternal mental health prior to having their first child. Often, women do not receive adequate information regarding postpartum depression and other mental health challenges that can arise during pregnancy and postpartum. 

For nearly five years Raising Resilience has been working in the community through partnerships with stakeholders and ongoing free services to women in the Charlotte community. Through previous funding, Raising Resilience provided over 300 Black women with free mental health services in 2020. With this funding, we were able to improve birthing outcomes for women in our community by 40 %. Raising Resilience is instrumental in Charlotte, N.C. due to the unique services we provide to Black mothers. Also, accessibility to maternal mental services is catered and often only holds space for non-Black women. Through our current initiatives and being a small non-profit, we have made an impactful mark on our community by changing the narrative to maternal mental health for women of color and bridging the gap between access to better care that improves the outcomes for women and families through our programs. 

Since 2018, Raising Resilience has helped over 3,000 women in North Carolina and DC through our programs focused on maternal mental health. 

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Our road to where we are now has come with transitions and building our confidence as therapists. Working in mental health as new therapists in 2015 we learned that you can quickly run into burnout. So many amazing therapists become burnout due to their limited ability to see clients who fall within their niche or feel the need to see a load of clients at the expense of their own self-care. Also learning that mental health doesn’t have to be a field where you cannot meet your financial goals and still help people. 

Our biggest hurdle has been valuing our worth and taking the initiative to step out on our own. We specialize in black women’s mental health and often we have to give a disclaimer of why we hold space for black women and couples. A constant struggle is proving why black women deserve priority in their mental wellness. Our practice values addressing not just challenges but providing a safe place for black individuals that are not often held with open ears. 

We had to learn about ourselves as therapists, black women, and our own relationship with each other as friends and business partners in order to allow our private practice to thrive. We ground ourselves in defining our niche, serving our aligned clients, and knowing our worth as therapists. 

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Raising Resilience priority is providing support for black women and couples during their pregnancy and the postpartum period. We also value being able to provide reduced-fee mental health services through our previous grant funding. We started off working diligently in our community by delivering essential items in person in our bi-weekly postpartum support groups, Raising Resilience looks for innovative ways to reach birthing individuals in need across the nation. Virtual support groups for perinatal, infant loss, general mental health, LGBTQ+, and teen support allow members access to a safe space to share their experiences with like-minded peers. Virtual methods of reaching clients have been fundamental during the COVID-19 pandemic, with over 3,200 clients being served virtually since 2020. As for in-person services, over 1,500 clients have visited the office to pick up supplies, attend support sessions, and receive healthcare services. 

Raising Resilience serves Black women and birthing people to decrease complications in the postpartum period related to mental health. In the United States, Black women are twice as likely to develop postpartum depression as their white counterparts but half as likely to get treated. The current state of Black maternal mental health is the product of hundreds of years of social structures impacting the environments of Black people. 

Raising Resilience bridges the gap between appropriate diagnosis, decreasing bias, education, and mental health services dedicated to Black women during pregnancy and postpartum. Our services and innovation app are allowing women to not navigate their postpartum period blindly leading to more serious mental health and stress-related outcomes in their future years. The transition into parenthood doesn’t come with a handbook or resources at hand but Raising Resilience through workshops, apps, services, and community outreach using evidence-based training is able to provide vital resources to improve maternal mental health outcomes for Black women. 

We developed a maternal mental health app this past year. Our app bridges the gap between maternal mental health and technology. We are working to launch our app launch from prototype to in the hands of families. Our app will streamline care coordination, provider directory, telehealth, courses, and real-time access to perinatal mental health screening. This program/app will offer resources to any front-line healthcare providers serving pregnant and postpartum women, including but not limited to OB/GYNs, nurses, midwives, lactation consultants, and pediatricians. 

Raising Resilience also has a provider collaborative, a safe space for birth workers, medical professionals, and medical professionals to receive training in areas of Black maternal mental health care. 

We also have developed trainings proven to identify unique stressors in Black women and birthing individuals dealing with Maternal Mental Health complications. By implementing our programs and training methods into everyday practices for self-care alignment and prioritizing this method in practices for the community, the training can help those who take the training on what they can do to change the current outlook of maternal mental health in Black women and birthing individuals and understanding the social determinants of health and cultural barriers. And can demonstrate the dedication Raising Resilience provides through compassionate care and strategy for patients and providers, including mindfulness, therapy, music, and more. 

Our ultimate goal is a Postpartum Care Center. This will be an environment that nurtures new mothers and parents during the postpartum period. From mental health services, lactation and feeding assistance, and baby care that allows mothers to stay overnight. We aim to fill in for “the village” that’s often not present for mothers who are trying to find harmony between their emotional stability and being a new mom. 

Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
We definitely see maternal mental health and mental health overall moving more in the direction of digital technology. The pandemic has been taxing on us all and has a lot been able to allow people to access mental health in the comfort of their homes. Maternal mental health and technology have been able to connect mothers in various ways via virtual support groups, mental health apps, virtual communities, and telehealth will definitely continue to expand. There is research currently being published highlighting the importance of technology and maternal mental health. 

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Image Credits
Ariel Perry Photography

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