Ideagen Radio
Ideagen Radio
2025 Global Leadership Summit: Dr. Lena Green, Dr. Sydney Harkenson & Pastor Michael A. Walrond Jr. — Building Mental Health Equity
New York’s streets may be closed for UN Week, but the doors to a different kind of summit are wide open: a pastor and two clinicians speaking plainly about stigma, access, and the future of mental health care. From a rare disease and a near-fatal stroke to a 10,000-member congregation, we trace how one leader’s decision to seek therapy led to a free, community-powered clinic in Harlem—and why moving care outside the church walls helped people walk in without shame.
We explore what equitable access truly looks like: a clinic with no cost barriers, flexible hours, and an interdisciplinary team spanning psychiatry, psychology, social work, faith leadership, and public health. Then we widen the lens—embedding mental health in primary care, building supports into schools for early intervention, and using clear, consistent communication to normalize asking for help. Along the way, we confront demand head-on: long waitlists signal need, but they also represent trust gained when neighbors see care working for people like them.
Technology enters the discussion with nuance. AI and teletherapy can scale evidence-based interventions to communities with too few clinicians, yet youth safety and ethics can’t be an afterthought. The panel speaks candidly about reports of harmful chatbot interactions, setting a high bar for guardrails and naming the four screen-era harms that shape development: social deprivation, sleep loss, attention fragmentation, and addiction. The conversation also addresses burnout across helping professions and corporate teams, connecting the dots between culture, policy, and performance. The data is clear: organizations that support mental health outperform, and leaders who model rest and therapy make it safe for others to follow.
If you care about mental health equity, youth well-being, responsible AI, and healthier workplaces, this is a blueprint you can use. Subscribe, share this episode with someone who leads people, and leave a review with one change you want your organization to make next.
Welcome back to the Idea Gen Global Leadership Summit. We have another exciting interview today. I'd like to welcome to the stage Dr. Sidney Hengerson, Dr. Alina Green, and Pastor Mike Walrant. The Dream Team. The Dream Team. The Dream Team. And so what an incredible interview. We're here live at the Nasdaq. And what a moment in time. On the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, you've got all the world leaders, roads are closed, difficult to get across town, but yet here we are talking about some incredibly important issues. And more so now than ever, right? This is a moment in time. And so I'd like to begin by asking um professional journey. Most people have a story about what brought them to their profession or even how they became interested in the topic of mental health. Mental health, especially post-COVID, I mean, we're all we've all we all went through it together. And mental health now, you know, and and you can talk about the reasons and the factors around it, but mental health, first of all, folks are more aware of what it is or what it is not. Um, but also how it's impacting society, the global society. Would you kindly share, whoever would like to share this, okay. Um how you became a clinician or advocate in the field of mental health and wellness.
SPEAKER_03:Uh yes, well, thank you for that question for having us today. I'm gonna be very brief because it's a long story how I became an advocate. But uh it started for me in 2012, and that was the year I myself started to seek therapy. The background to that was I have an extremely rare disease. Um I tell people there's 340 million people in this country, and it's only just under 6,000 who have this condition. It's called common variable immunodeficiency, which means I was born with no antibodies. So I don't have a real immune system. So every four weeks I have to get an infusion of synthetic antibodies. But over the years, it was diagnosed late in life, and over the years, hospitalized about 25 times, survived sepsis three times, had a massive stroke in 2018. And what was happening in 12 is that I didn't know what was really going on, but it was deep depression and serving as a pastor at the same time of an extremely large congregation. And I didn't, I felt like things were unraveling, not with work, fine, but personally, and it was due to the sickness, constantly sick, always going to hospitals. And so, and this is before the official diagnosis took place. And so I had a staff member who used to always talk about therapy, and I asked her one day, I said, you know, who's your therapist? And she told me, I'd never known about therapy, never talked about therapy before with anyone, never crossed my mind, but I knew something was going on that was having a tremendous impact on me mentally and emotionally. And so I sought out a therapist. She's still my therapist to this day, 13 years later, an amazing human being who I will say saved my life. But what I realized is that if if a therapist was able to do for me what she did, there are countless other people who could benefit. So in 2012, the same year I started therapy, uh, we hired a therapist on staff at the church to now offer free mental health care to the members of the congregation. Congregation is about 10,000 members, so that one person got pretty swamped. And you could imagine, and started bringing on interns and the like. And fast forward 2016, what I realized is one day I was in the lobby of the church, and we saw a young woman who was coming to see our therapist on staff. Her name was Joyce, the therapist's name was Joyce Johnson. And the woman came through the front door as I happened to be in the lobby, and I saw her whisper Joyce's name. It was as if she was ashamed to come to the church to see the therapist. And in that moment, I said, we need a space completely separate from the church, so people don't have to bring that shame in. And four years later, we were able to get a space around the corner from the church. And so we opened that in 2016, and that uh to this day is doing amazing work led by Dr. Green. What we call the Hope Center, healing on purpose and evolving for those, and we offered free mental health care to the entire Harlem community. And Dr. Green will talk more about that, but to this day the wait list is about what now? Over 250 people on the wait list. Uh so we're in the doing great work, but it is necessary work. So I'll I'll pause on that part there.
SPEAKER_02:That's incredible. And it located in Harlem.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:10,000 members.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That's a lot of members.
SPEAKER_03:It's a lot of people.
SPEAKER_02:That's a lot of people. And two, and did I hear correctly? Did you say 250 people on the waiting list?
SPEAKER_03:200.
SPEAKER_02:To get assistance?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, but it two things. One, it shows the incredible need. Yeah. But also, I think the work we've done in the community, we've helped people, I would say we kind of liberated some people to feel comfortable with pursuing mental health care. There's a deep stigma in the African-American community. And so I think we've been able in some way in our community to kind of deal with that stigma. And we've seen the numbers grow over the years.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we work closely with the American Psychiatric Association Foundation, Dr. Roel Andrews Jr., and uh his leadership has been profound. Um and and I know enough to be dangerous, but I think the uh the idea that there's a stigma to destigmatize, um, especially as we talked about earlier with COVID and isolation and all the other things that you read about every single day, and statistics that I can't even repeat because they're so startling, especially with teenagers and teenage girls and boys and and and and their their state um today. I think what you're doing is profound, Pastor. And uh we're grateful to people like you that are truly changing the world.
SPEAKER_03:It has definitely been a a labor, but a labor of love in a man. And I have to often remind people we were doing this work before it became popular to do this work. Yeah. You know, especially post-COVID.
SPEAKER_02:That's an important footnote.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:You didn't just show up when you read the head the headline.
SPEAKER_03:No, and we were prepared in your part. You know, in that moment that we were able to offer services so that when COVID hit and churches were shut down, we were able to transition to doing teletherapy at the Hope Center. And that made a big, big impact. But again, we were already moving and doing before things went kind of haywire in this country with COVID.
SPEAKER_02:So Yeah, we've had the opportunity to talk to NFL athletes, for example, that have that have uh uh uh you know experienced you know real crises. And they're it's startling. You think you're you're at the top of your game, you're you're you're really the pinnacle of your career, and yet you can still have a mental health crisis. Absolutely. And if you don't have the tools, the coach, the person to talk to. That's what I love about the uh APAF is they talk about you can talk to anybody. You talk to your pastor, you don't have to go to a psychiatrist, you can go to anybody and and and talk to them, and and if you need professional help, sure, of course. Uh but that's what we're talking about. Let's talk a little bit about mental health equity. Um, despite growing awareness, access, and I think you've pointed that out to quality, mental health care remains deeply unequal across communities for various reasons that we all probably can allude to. What are the most critical systemic changes needed to ensure equitable access to care, especially for marginalized populations? You have food deserts, you have healthcare deserts, I'm assuming you also have, along with that, a mental health care desert. How do you how do you help people?
SPEAKER_00:Um so just uh to share a little bit about my own personal background, um I'm a doctor of clinical social work as well as a psychotherapist, um, and run the community-based mental health clinic that Pastor Mike is talking about. Um, and I would say when we think about equitable access, um, there are several things that are important as we think about access to care, especially in marginalized communities. Um, so the community-based mental health clinic that we run is actually free, right? So financial barriers don't get in the way of people getting access to care. Um, on that staff, we have um faith leaders, we have psychiatrists, social workers, psychologists, um, we also have folks who join us from the realm of public health, so that we are making sure that we're taking care of the whole person. Um, I would say, in addition to that, um we provide flexible schedules so folks can come from eight o'clock in the morning to six o'clock in the evening, including the weekends. So we're open on Saturdays, and folks know how to get access to care. Um, so we're constantly providing messages, um, making sure that we're working on destigmatizing, which I'm sure we'll talk a little bit more about later. Um, and then when we think about other areas, right, we think about making mental health care accessible beyond the institutions, right? So we need hospital-based care services and um so thinking about folding mental health care into primary care, right, so that folks know that they can uh receive services for their mental and physical health in the same space. Um, and I think we can also think about schools, right? Um, schools are an important way to uh think about early intervention for care, but folding that right into the system so that people um can access services wherever they are, specifically our youth as well.
SPEAKER_02:Incredible. Thanks for all you're doing. It sounds you know like you're really moving the needle, you know, and it's so critical to have that access. Um we talked a little bit a little bit about AI. And um we see all of these platforms coming at us, and uh, we heard about Agentic, we heard about all these different areas in AI. Now, let's talk a little bit about something really interesting, which is digital therapy and AI. With the right rise of AI-driven tools and these teletherapy platforms and faith-based platforms, we've seen the commercials, right? Um it's incredible what's going on. And so, how do you see technology reshaping potentially the therapeutic relationship? And are there concerns that you have around integrating these new innovations into care? And I'll ask um Dr. Sidney Hankerson that question.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. Uh so first, thank you, George, for providing this platform. And I I just want to give a little bit about my background. Um, so I am um vice chair of psychiatry at Mount Sinai Health System here in New York City. Um, and in that capacity, uh charged with really expanding access to care uh for vulnerable populations. I also do a lot of work with Fortune 500 companies who've seen a rise in challenges and stressors in their workforce, especially in financial services. And I'm also on the NFL's Behavioral Wellness Committee, and I'm one of two psychiatrists in the country that is a second opinion physician for the MBA. Um, so we want the Knicks to win this year. Uh but if any players in the league have a mental health challenge, I'm one of two psychiatrists that will see that. So I just want to highlight uh for those of you who are not familiar with the black church tradition, how rare it is for Pastor Rowland to share his story. The equivalent of that is for all of the 3,000 CEOs that you interviewed to publicly talk about seeing a therapist on this stage. It's unprecedented. And it has led to a cultural shift in how people talk about, think about, and access services. So I share that because I think that when we talk about technology, I think the important thing is how can we scale, how can we bring to more people evidence-based interventions, especially for people across the globe, as we're thinking about UN Week, who do not have access to doctors of social work or psychologists or psychiatrists? How do we bring to scale evidence-based interventions in the far corners of the globe? Uh, and thinking about countries like Africa and India, where there are literally five or six psychiatrists for millions of people. I think that is the promise of technology is how can we actually scale and get access to people across the globe who otherwise wouldn't get it. And we've seen an explosion of technology-based platforms, AI-based platforms post-COVID and certainly with AI. I think the things that we don't know and what we have to study is how AI could potentially be harmful. There's been some reports of youth in particular talking to AI platforms as their therapists. There have been reports of youth actually dying by suicide at the behest of an AI app. And so I think we are at a critical moment at this intersection of technology and mental health. Where we embrace the promise of increased access and scale, but we have to do so in a way that is ethical, that is rigorous, and that does not replace the human interaction and safeguards that we know will prevent folks from using the technology in a way that is harmful.
SPEAKER_03:I want to add to that something I guess, and I and I love what Sydney just said, but I want to add to that, especially for this audience. We know what technology does and how it helps advance us culturally, but the impact on the young people is is is hard, and we don't often hear conversations about that. This is this amazing book by Jonathan Haidt called The Anxious Generation. And there are four things he kind of highlights that young people suffer from. One is uh social deprivation, sleep deprivation, uh attention fragmentation, and addiction. That you have young people who are in the early years of development are so locked in to their smartphones and their tablets and will stay on them all night long and deprive themselves of sleep. And I think anyone knows the importance in the years of developing the brain, how important sleep is. Social deprivation. You have young people now who are awkward in social settings because their interaction has been through a tablet, through a phone, and not real engagement with other human beings. And that takes a toll. That leads to this attention fragmentation. We all know what that is. You don't have to be a young person to know what that is. You're doing something, you get a notification on the phone, you jump here. You may call it multitasking, but there's no ability to really focus in and center on what has to be done. And then there's the addiction part that I think many of us, not just young people, find ourselves addicted to the technology, addicted to the phones. I have a friend of mine, I've told her numerous times, you need to get off of social media. You're on too much all day long. I said, Do you have a job? And I, but posting, posting, posting frenetically. And I think that's part of it. You feel is this fear of missing out, or fear of not being relevant. And at the heart of it all, for young people, adults, is this addiction to attention and addiction, the particular kind of affirmation that I think can be problematic, especially as those who are in their teen years now develop. We're gonna see that and feel that in years to come.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and you couple that with isolation from the COVID and the you know, all of that that we all collectively went through as a planet. We all remember the moment with Bacelli singing in the Duomo. Right that moment.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, that was as dire as it got. And um, and here we are dealing with the aftermath. Yeah. And and a lot of what, Pastor, you're describing is it's startling, and I think, you know, and I hope that um that it's being addressed as you mentioned, Dr. Hankerson, I and and Dr. Green, you know, it's um it's a moment in time, especially with global leaders assembled here in New York, uh, talking about all of these issues. When we talk about what are the global issues, this is this is one for our time. Absolutely. And and I think school systems, when we're talking about education, we're talking about being able to communicate, to be able to do the basic things. I like to still use a telephone, remember? I also use a an a conference line, throws people off a little bit, right? And so you know, I'm not a Ludite, but I but I believe that, but but it's important though that our kids, that this future generations, as we're going in now, we're relying on them for the future. And this is what we're talking about here. This is existential. It's not just like, oh, it's a nice to-do, you know, like I I always thought it was important that you teach kids to look someone in the eye and shake their hand, and now you're talking about the digital component and it's constant, and it's algorithms, and it's all these things. So I think the fact that we're having this conversation is positive. I think, Pastor, thank you for your courage. I want to give you a hand here. Let's let's give uh for your courage on behalf of so many of the 10,000 members that can't get past that. A church with 10,000 members, I'm Greek Orthodox. We have maybe a thousand, you know, uh in in our churches. 10,000 is is is is you know, my gosh, uh so many people that you're helping. Let's talk a little bit about burnout. Burnout in helping professions. I mean, we all hear about healthcare. We have a lot of healthcare-related organizations here today. Burnout, let's talk about that. Who would like to address that? Doctor?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, sure. Sure. So um, you know, burnout has become a big topic uh in the world, especially among mental health professionals, because we have uh our caseloads have doubled, tripled, quadrupled in many instances uh post-COVID. Uh, but burnout is is really a condition where you feel detached from work, um, you are not as productive, um, and you feel just complete physical exhaustion. And so burnout is one of the major risk factors for clinical depression. And I bring up clinical depression because you know, the World Health Organization, in a landmark study a few years ago, said that depression is the number one cause of disability in the world. So more people are suffering in the world in silence from depression than any other health condition. And in New York City, depression is the number one cause of disability in New York City. And so uh it's critical for global leaders in the workplace to think about how they are creating cultures that facilitate wellness, that facilitate access to resources, um, that allow employees to come together. You know, I think so much of burnout um happens because we are on Zoom literally from nine to five, and you don't literally have time to even go use the bathroom. Because you got to get off one call and go to the next. That's real. And so I think that as we, you know, are coming back to a uh a more kind of hybrid type environment, really um, indeed, I'll just share this, um, indeed, uh published a survey of the companies that are are most known for promoting wellness. And over the last um, I think it was 10 years, they cited these companies that had employees that had a sense of purpose, that felt like their leaders supported them to see a therapist, that created access to mental health resources, these companies actually perform better than the SP 500. So it's good business to support employee mental health and well-being. And being able to name and identify burnout and come up with tangible strategies to do that, I think is critical and is also a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I just want to add to that. Um, so creating that cultural wellness within the workplace is incredibly important. And I think most people would be surprised to hear that most people, even being in the same office because of the uh excessive use with technology, actually feel isolated. Isolated at work, isolated at home. And so I would encourage all of us in this room to think about how can we create ways for people to connect at work and connect more in person, right? And so opportunities to gather together, opportunities to take lunch together, opportunities to engage in community service together. Um, those are certainly things that can improve workplace wellness, um reduce burnout, um, and think about the other things that also contribute to that, and including you know administrative overloads as well.
SPEAKER_02:And less social media, maybe? Unless social media.
SPEAKER_03:And I'll say a quick line, something I learned a long time ago. I think too often, and we've talked about this before, we treat rest as reward and not requirement. Right? So changing the mindset about self-care becomes critical. You feel like, oh, this is my reward. No, you can't perform, as Dr. Hangison, Dr. Green said, if you feel constantly under the gun, constantly under stress. So we have to get to a point where one, we stop seeing ourselves as synonymous with what we produce. That's part of the problem, where our productivity is more important than our well-being. And so, if that is the mentality you have, burnout is going to happen, and it can happen quietly, and pretty soon it takes a deteriorating effect on the work you do. So I think we have to change the mentality around rest, around self-care.
SPEAKER_01:And it has to start with leaders. Yes. And I think and I want to emphasize that um, you know, the three of us have experience in corporate settings talking to leaders about how do you talk about burnout. Um, you know, in the finance, I've been called in to kind of work with analysts and associates because they compare that group to residents, right? They work these long hours, they burnt out, uh, they don't have any power. But what Pastor Mike is doing, what Dr. Green is doing through the Hope Center is as leaders, they are setting the example of what creating wellness in the workplace looks like. And without this message coming from the top, those who are lower-level staff have no power to make that change. So we would love to connect with you know leaders here to see how we can spread this message, but it really must start with the leaders, you know, in this room.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I want to sort of end where we started. Uh, I want to thank Dr. Rawl Andrews Jr. and the American Psychiatric Association Foundation for helping to bring together just an incredibly inspiring panel here to talk about one of the most important issues facing our future and future global leaders, Dr. Sidney Hengerson, Dr. Lena Green, and Pastor Mike Walren. Thank you so very much. Thank you.