The organizers of a planned Black Mental Health Workshop had to reschedule the program due to insufficient attendance, which was an unanticipated setback.
The program, which was originally scheduled to take place Mar. 21 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the Valhalla room at LBCC, was designed to address important concerns pertaining to the mental health of the Black community.
“We attempted to reschedule, but there was no flexibility because the Black History Month schedule had already been set. The logistics simply didn’t work out this time.” said faculty member of the communication access center Jaymee Hunt.
There were concerns about the underlying causes of the low attendance raised by the rescheduling.
A faculty member of the communication access center Rebecca Lucas considered that the low attendance at the workshop may have been caused by a lack of knowledge or promotion.
“It’s possible that the timing wasn’t ideal, or perhaps there wasn’t enough awareness about the event. We had to reschedule the program due to insufficient attendance, which was definitely an unanticipated setback we had to faced” Lucas said.
Faculty member of the communication access center Stephanie Bonales identifies potential contributing factors as systemic obstacles.
“It is distressing when structural barriers like itinerary prevent the very conversations that are necessary to address mental health.” said Bonales.
The organizers of the black mental health workshop are committed to identifying the underlying reasons for the initial setback, and making sure that important discussions on mental health get the consideration and assistance they require as they work to reschedule and regroup.
While timing was a strong obstacle to the rescheduling of the workshop, itinerary was also a big part of this issue, organizers need to follow a schedule throughout the month and that typically affects the rescheduling of events.
Mental health workshops are very important for college students while they share a safe space for them to share their day to day challenges, there will be more workshops in the short term future just like this one.
A good example of this is the “prioritize your mental health workshop” that happened in Apr. 17th at the pcc campus where only two students showed up to the workshop.
This is an issue that keeps on happening with several workshops at LBCC where low attendance events are happening due to the lack of advertisement.