Crowdfunding campaign wants to connect Black SC patients to black healthcare providers | Cheers

When award-winning hip-hop artist Benny Starr realized last year that it was time to find a therapist, he knew he needed help. Not just because Starr was interested in looking for a mental health advisor, he wanted this person to be black.

“Blackness is not a monolith, and we know that. But blacks, in general, understand what blacks deal with every day,” he said. “We relate in a different way. … Having someone you can sit on, who understands the impact of stress … They can provide – for me – better insight into how to work with these things.”

The problem is that there are simply not that many Black therapists.

“I didn’t know where to start,” said Starr. “The idea seemed a little overwhelming.”

Then he turned to Clara Benson.

Benson, 32, graduated in psychology at Winthrop University in Rock Hill and was the founder of Community Resources for Enduring Wellness, CREW, a group created to connect black patients in South Carolina with black healthcare professionals.

The obstacle is that black patients in this state are abundant, while black providers are scarce. That’s why, last year, Benson spent an entire weekend compiling a list of dozens of black therapists in South Carolina and then distributed the spreadsheet for free.

“At the moment, it’s just a list. I took about 20 hours of research and scouring articles on ‘Psychology Today’ and I think I met 136 black therapists in South Carolina over a weekend. That’s when I realized that there is no central bank of data for those things, “said Benson.

But this is not an exclusive problem in the field of therapy. The need for more black health professionals in all specialties is obvious and has not been addressed.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, only 8% of medical school graduates in South Carolina were black in 2018, although blacks and African Americans make up more than 26% of the state’s population.

There are demonstrated historical reasons why many black patients are suspicious of the medical establishment and many experts agree that more black doctors would do much to alleviate some of these concerns. This is a problem exacerbated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

And while the medical school pipeline is certainly a big part of that supply and demand issue, Benson said it’s sometimes just a matter of knowing where to look.

To that end, she said, resources like therapyforblackgirls.com and therapyforblackmen.com tried to connect black patients with black providers. But these national sites are not very useful in South Carolina, she argued, where so many patients live in rural areas.

Now, Benson hopes to raise $ 3,500 through a crowdfunding campaign so that she can compile similar lists of black healthcare providers, including doctors and dentists. CREW requested funds to promote this mission. Any amount raised through GoFundMe will help the organization until other sources of revenue are available, said Benson. So far, it has raised about $ 1,600 as of February 4. She said she will use the money to pay her web designer and grant writer, and that will allow her to keep the internet on.

Benson has already dismissed a project assistant until she can raise more money for the year. It is assisted by an unpaid advisory board. Starr, who recently moved from Charleston to Charlotte, is on that board. His personal journey as an artist is increasingly focused on well-being, he said.

“When Clara spoke to me about her vision and what she wanted to do,” said Starr, “I thought it was very, very important.”

But the mission requires money, and for now, Benson is basically a one-woman show.

“At the moment, it’s just me doing all the administration and data collection and working with the web designer,” said Benson. “We have to keep the lights on.”

She will graduate from Winthrop in the spring, when she will transition from her full-time job to CREW. She compared the project to a “digital green paper for health and well-being”.

The original “Black Driver’s Green Book”, published for decades during Jim Crow, was used by blacks, especially when traveling through the segregated South, to ensure they chose safe places to eat and stay.

“You knew where it was safe to stop, where to get gas, cities that you knew you had to jump,” said Benson.

Eventually, she hopes that the CREW database will be able to connect black patients with black gynecologists, yoga instructors and holistic doctors as well.

“Our hope is that we can expand from South Carolina to the South and go across the country.”

Reach Lauren Sausser at 843-937-5598.