Inspire Multicultural Holistic Campus: Incorporating Members' Perspectives

Health disparities greatly impact lower income communities of color (Hooper, 2014) and are especially prominent in the metropolitan and east valley area of San Bernardino. Previous traditional efforts to alleviate mental health disparities have been largely unsuccessful. In order to help alleviate mental health disparities, the San Bernardino Department of Behavioral Health implemented an innovative project known as the Inspire Multicultural Holistic Campus, a community-driven establishment. This project uses a holistic and community-focused approach to reduce the prevalence of mental health disparities. This study reports partial results of a project evaluating the effectiveness of the Inspire Holistic Campus. It was hypothesized that community members would become more open to addressing mental health issues and seeking help as well as become less inclined to stigmatize mental health as a function of participation at Inspire. While a mixed-method approach is being used to explore this issue, this study focused on the qualitative focus group data. The findings suggest that participation in services at Inspire increased participants’ awareness of the importance of engaging in activities that enhanced mental wellbeing and increased their awareness of warning signs related to mental health concerns. The participants also reported an increased willingness to seek help and increased awareness of how to do so. These findings provide support for the effectiveness of this innovative approach to addressing mental health in a holistic fashion. Additionally, this project demonstrates the importance of incorporating the community’s perspectives when seeking to increase mental health awareness and decrease mental health stigma (Baker, 2005).