NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) – The City of Norfolk Community Services Board and Project ORF will host a Community Conversation: “Surviving Through Mental Health.“

Project ORF is a newly formed nonprofit in Norfolk established in July 2023. 

“We focus on mental health, education for young and adults and preventative tools to help them combat transgenerational trauma. Our goal is to bridge the gap in Black mental health,” said Shawnice Hernandez, Project ORF Executive Director and Co-Founder. 

The free event takes place Thursday, July 11 from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Historic Attucks Theatre, 1010 Church Street in Norfolk.

The conversation will include a professional panel discussion with local experts: 

• Krystal Vaughan, Ph.D., Trauma therapist and owner of Cornerstone Therapeutic Services
• Kamron Blue LCSW, CHKD Safer Futures Program Coordinator
• Tonya Shell, Ph.D., Program Director NSU Campus Prevention and Response Program
• Kristie Norwood, Ph.D., Director of the Student Counseling Center at Hampton University

“We’re trying to keep it targeted around youth and how mental health shows up in our community,” said Hernandez. “This is generational at this point…this is nothing new. Community gun violence is centered around mental health. Poverty is centered around mental health. Homelessness is centered around mental health… The lack of education that our students are not getting in the schools is centered around mental health. The list goes on and on.”

The community conversations come as June concludes men’s mental health awareness month followed by minority mental health awareness month in July.  

“Men are always looked at as the ones to be strong and to not have emotions when they actually should. It helps them navigate. It helps everyone navigate life a lot easier,” said Hernandez. “They are in a silent crisis because they don’t have the words to be able to put with their emotions in order to get and receive the help.”

She adds, “We’re hurting for, we’re crying out in ways that we know to cry out and a lot of the times it’s anger. I feel like us as a minority, specifically in the black community, we get looked at as angry, aggressive and loud when that’s really just us living with a lot of bottled-up emotions that we just don’t know how to express and communicate.”

Councilwoman Danica Royster, a mental health awareness advocate, has been open about her personal mental health journey. Royster helped create this event based on her passion for the community to have access to mental health resources and assist parents (or guardians) to provide a space for youth to connect.

Royster tells WAVY.com this was inspired by the need for access to resources and an effort to dismantle the taboo on mental health in the Black community. It also provides an opportunity to utilize her platform to encourage people to not feel as if their diagnosis determines their destiny.

To register for the event visit Surviving Through Mental Health Tickets.