 So we're here today to learn about our Black Muslim brothers and sisters' experiences, their mental health and well-being. Allah's praises says in the Qur'an, O Mankind, we have created you male and female and appointed you races and tribes that you may know one another. Surely the noblest among you in the sight of Allah is the most God-fearing of you. Allah is all-knowing and all-aware. As Muslims, we're composed of diverse languages, experiences, cultures, but we all have the same goal, which is the pleasure of Allah. As we know, February is Black History Month, and it should be of interest to every Muslim, especially in America. It is a liberal estimate that at least 20% of the Africans enslaved in the Americas were Muslim, and in some areas up to 40%. Islam in America as it stands today would not be the way it is without African-American influence. As Muslims, our story in this country didn't begin with the coming of immigrants, but with the lives of the courageous African-American slaves, whose blood, sweat and tears were instrumental in building this country. Their struggle is our struggle. To this day, about a third of Muslims in America identify as Black, and more than 50% of people in Africa are Muslim. Black Muslims established Islam in America, and without them, we wouldn't see and experience Islam in America as we do today. So, inshallah, this Black History Month, we want to listen. We want to learn about our Black Muslim brothers and sisters, their history, their experiences, and how to support their mental health and well-being. So, these are our objectives today. The first half of the conversation is going to be learning about the Black Muslim experience in America. And then the second half of the conversation is going to be about the solutions to attain wellness, inshallah. And with the agenda for the first half, we're going to discuss the history of Islam in America, and we're also going to discuss the unique pains of the Black Muslim community. And inshallah, in the second half, we're going to offer solutions both for the Black Muslim community and the rest of the community to support our Black Muslim brothers and sisters, inshallah. So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce Sister Tiffany Jones, who is actually one of our Madison therapists. She's a compassionate, conscientious, and dedicated professional with extensive knowledge of offering advice, support, rehabilitation, and guidance to clients who have experienced trauma or hardship. She has a broad-based experience in counseling, social work, and psychotherapy. She offers exemplary case management skills along with expertise in diagnosing and treating emotional disturbances, mental health disorders, and crisis interventions. She is continually looking to enhance her knowledge and further develop her skills to be a better clinician to contribute to the overall growth of the social services and mental health industry. She's also an associate clinical social worker, professional with a master's in social work from the University of South California, and it's focused on community, organization, planning, and administration. She also has a bachelor from UC Berkeley in social welfare and minor in education and public policy. She also, inshallah, has an MBA from Pepperdine University, and she's a doctoral student right now, inshallah, and she's giving us her time in social work. And we also have with us our wonderful doctor, Zakia Hayat, who, this is her second time joining us. She was in our healing circle last month. She's a psychologist consultant advocate, and she provides interactive sessions for clients, children, adolescents, and adults. She focuses on center approach in both Islamic and Western culture and around any type of relationship concern that needs to be addressed. She believes that clients can expect greater success when they are serious about working in their life issues. So that further ado, we are looking forward to your discussion. Thank you so much for being here with us, Dr. Zakia and Sister Tiffany. Thank you. Assalamu alaikum, everyone. I'd like to begin with al-Fatiha. Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem. Alhamdulillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem. I'd like to begin my topic area specifically on point to the historical landscape of Black, Muslims in America, both male and female. So I'm hoping that we can get a clearer understanding of what took place in the past and tied into current time. So Black History Month for many Black Muslims in America didn't just begin at the ship or landing on the plantation. It began with the Muslims and non-Muslims making that dua to Allah for a salvation to come. Even though they may not have experienced the salvation at that particular time of suffering, that dua sort of passed on and they believe, they believe these, you know, the Black Muslims at that particular time believe that that awakening time in the 60s and the 70s were the times where they became aware and they made their shahada to make change in society. Now change came at a price. It wasn't easy. Now we're looking at change at the viewpoint of the Midwest, the East Coast and the South. Now the South wasn't the South that we see today. The South was the Bible Belt. So with that, Muslims suffered and but even though through suffering, their goal was to break the chains of slavery off of their head, off of their minds. Yes, there was some psychological damage and emotional effects due to their experiences in their neighborhood. First of all, I'd like to thank Allah for the opportunity to share this information because it is something that is long overdue. It has been pushed under the rug and ignored. But today, in short, I'm hoping to unfold many realities of that particular time so that we could see causation to where we are today. So one area of their concern is that Muslims, the black Muslims at that particular time, they made a pattern of reciting. There was no God but Allah and that Muhammad was the messenger of Allah. Now keep in mind that Arabic wasn't that attuned to them so they practiced and they made their prayers in English. But they rehearsed it repeatedly to themselves. And so with that, they were hoping that major change, they were very idealistic, but they were hoping that change would occur. So and some of the things that they were hoping for would be to change society's outlook on black America. And but over time, conditions began to worsen for black Muslims, particularly in the areas of which they lived. The changes in society came about where there was the movement from Europe to America regarding the nuclear family style. They wanted the society wanted change. They wanted change in their neighborhood and they wanted black Muslims to stop educating the public to become aware of the problem areas of society. So here we are, they're facing the reconstruction of themselves and yet the reconstruction of society that's taking place against what they want. So some of the things that happened at that time in their housing complex is that they were given an option to be a part of the nuclear family and reconstruct. So they introduced the idea of housing. But the condition of that is that the women had to be housed, let's say had to agree to be housed without their children, with their children, but not the fathers. Another condition of that lifestyle is that they had to subject themselves to invasion, home invasion on an unannounced time. So which meant that the social worker of the mental health industry would come unexpectedly, search underneath the beds, look into the refrigerator, look into the closets and spy to see if male presence was there. They had to hide the telephones with their neighbors to avoid conversation. Quite often the women would force the children, if not whip their children to make sure they would not, that they would lie. They would not be honest when white social workers would come to the home and interrogate them regarding male presence. So this continued over time where social workers would not only show up during the daytime, but also unexpectedly at night. Now two Muslim black, two black Muslim women decided to do something opposite. And that was to address the social workers mental health interrogation to confront the government regarding the lack of rights and respect for its citizens. And so that too was met with some adversities. They also appealed to the judges to allow them to change their names from what they described the slave owner's name to names that they have chosen in Arabic. With organized complexities, the corporate organizations flooded their community with drugs and disparity, displaced the men. And there was a noticeable increase of depression, paranoia, fear, low self-esteem, drug addiction or diets because there was not enough adequate food in the neighborhood. They also witnessed tar and feathering and burning of other black Muslims at that time, the women, the children. They also witnessed the rapes. They witnessed the lynching and dismembering of other Muslim members of the families or within the neighborhood. Many things occurred in that time. And so I just wanted to just give you that kind of outlook of where they stood in terms of their beliefs that the system was out against them and not in favor of their movement. So that's pretty much what I have to say. Yeah. Thanks, Dr. secure. So I just want to also say piggyback off of what Dr. secure was saying that according to scholars, 30% of slaves, Muslim slaves came from central and West Africa. And those individuals lost several things in that transition, which caused trauma, violence during slavery, robbing themselves of their language, their religious traditions and their culture. And all of that trauma end up showing up now in their children's their offsprings. According to some statistics, for instance, suicide attempts around black youth increased 73% between 1991 to 2,017 major depression increased to 14% between 2015 to 2018. And now they're talking about. Amount those individuals. They're seeing different kind of symptoms showing manifest in. And we we look at it through society and we as parents or friends, we try to normalize these events saying that. These are normal things that happen. So we forget to see that most of these things stem from abuse, neglect, witness and violence in their community in their home. And they now showing up. So how do we address these? And how do we talk about these with individuals with our black Muslims? How do we support everyone? So we can talk about that. Okay. Thank you. Some of the things that I'd like to add to the forum is when black Muslims attempted to organize their own educational system. That didn't go so well, you know, because they attempted that, but then also they didn't, you know, there was an economic shortage of books. And they also made attempts to go into immigrant communities to seek educational support. Some were able to succeed and some were not. There were also Muslims, black Muslims who weren't as economically deprived, but were able to navigate looking more effectively in society. And they started, they went into public school, were pretty much successful at some of their efforts. However, things began to show up. Particularly, my topic will focus on the overdiagnosing of the population of black children, particularly boys at that time in public school sector. I have on record that black psychologists can be, let me see here, black psychologists by the name of Robert L. Williams in 1976. He was the first along with Dr. Francis Selle Sumner in the 1920s and the 1950s to identify the disparity and racism that was directed at black children, Muslim black children at that time and black children in general. It opened the door to a lawsuit that was made against the United States government and it was called Brown versus Board of Education. That occurred at a time when they had implied that this was an implication that was made that Muslim black children or black children in general were at risk of education, were at risk of proper care by their parents and that there was a need for moral training. Now, granted, they had family, they existed during that time, the extended family, but that wasn't important for them because the school district at that time and their area claimed it was not enough. So with the presidency of Obama, as Obama, Obama, he passed a law for the NCLB, which was no child left behind in 2001, that affected what Congress had enacted, which was the public law of 94-142. Now, when you have all of these systems focusing on black children and placing them in special education, they're not well tested, they're not well assessed, the teachers are not familiar with all the nuance about black culture and et cetera, et cetera, problems occur. And some of the problems that we've seen over time in my testing of children is that once the teachers ignite or inform the school psychologist or the psychologist outside, that there is a problem, there is a problem with a child. They alert the parents and identify that the child is not functioning at grade level. Now, there could be a discrepancy between ability or a style of learning. However, that discrepancy exists or it could be a behavior problem. So a list of battery assessments are made. As I mentioned before, there is a meeting with the staff of the school. They obtain data from them. There is a diagnosis that is obtained for the sake of the insurance companies. And there is the IEP or the 504 plan enact. And also they review the cumulative file. Now, granted if the schools were not up to date with files, particularly some of the Islamic schools and some of the regular schools, there is going to be missing information. So assessors, you know, be it school psychologists, the program specialists, teachers, they're going to miss this information. However, it didn't stop the process of the labeling and the referral for special ed. And we have seen that over time since the early 40s that Muslims children and also racism was the underlining area of report writing, a lack of understanding about the child in general, and a lack of understanding about the historical child in general. So in addition to what we've said before, when you look at trauma and trauma existed in the community, it had a role to play with these children. However, it was never recognized as a concerning item in the reports of the psychologist and the school. The goal was to label the child as special ed. And it was successfully done by the school. Now, one of the, you know, you can use any instrument to determine the ability of the child, but one of those, and I just sort of sketched this out here so we could see it. That bell curve there is a unique feature that was used back in the 1940s. Excuse me. In the 1940s. Now, with the bell curve, you have the midpoint here at the top of the line here, which is, it is called the distribution, the norm of distribution. So when you're in the middle of that, that bell curve, that bell curve creates the norm, either if it's still if the if the scores indicate more to the left, then that means that that child is in trouble. If the scores lean more to the right, then that is a functional child. But if the assessor is bias has already a bias toward the child, and the child has an anxiety, a child has been traumatized, and the child is not familiar with the tester or the assessor, then that will influence the outcome of that bell curve. But again, what goes notice is the report and the assessment of those people within the school district. And henceforth, that child will be moved automatically into special ed, which is not equipped to deal with that child. And most cases, the child will sit uneducated for months and months on. So, Tiffany, if you'd like to add a little bit to it on testing and assessments, from another angle, you could. So, another I would say unique pain and grief that Muslim experiences, depression and anxiety. And according to some scholars, our own Jacob experienced the same thing. He said, Jacob, when cried out to our Lord, I have been touched with adversity, and you are the most merciful of the merciful. So, we talk about having experienced diversity in our lives. And our scholars talk about it as well. So it does exist. Most of us tend to put down depression, anxiety amount or people and don't see treatments for these symptoms. One thing that I see in most of my talks with my clients is that they don't seek therapy or they don't talk about it until it's too late. And for us to start talking about it among ourselves or family, we need to be educated on how it looks and not just wait for a therapist to tell you this is how what's going on with you. Because most of the time we see that we get diagnosed for certain things mostly based on our skin color. One thing that I've seen in the past is we get that explosive disorder. It's just because they see us as an angry person and nothing else. And so we have to get more educated on how these symptoms manifest, how we can take control over it before we end up getting prescribed medication. As Dr. Sakeya says that we are always over-medicated. So let's see how we can work on getting different techniques and tools to support ourselves as Muslims. So, I mentioned earlier, were you, I'm sorry, did I? You're good. Okay, good. Okay, I mentioned earlier that there were two women, two Muslim women who were very instrumental in the awakening period of that era. Basically, some of the things that they did was to educate residents. I mean, they had all kinds of classes to educate about landlord-attended awareness, about cleanliness, about school rights, about children's rights. And it made an impact when it came to attending a child who was diagnosed with a learning disability or ADHD or ADD or somewhere on that spectrum of autism was not on the spectrum for Muslim black children at that particular time until the advent of drug addiction. Now, excuse me. And so what happened through that period, that long period of education was insightful, they became empowered, changes were being made, and guess what? Government intervened. They set up new regulations. So the programs had to end because it was no longer funded, even though they were aware of the process, but they were not allowed to continue the process. So here we're talking about a system where the mother would make every attempt to be an advocate for her child, the extended family participated in that process. However, again, the programs were shut down because they didn't want that kind of awareness to exist. That leads me on to anxiety. Now, anxiety was coupled with all of this. I mean, imagine a kid living in this environment, and what they're seeing constantly. And it's not like the average person living in the suburbs when they get off the bus or they get someone to pick them up from school. They're able to go home and see dogs, cats, children playing. I mean, it's a wholesome environment. And they may see or hear something pleasant in the neighborhood. But for these children, they heard cars running down the street, running into houses, gunshots, you know, people screaming, people being thrown from the projects, tall high rises, thrown from the buildings, or having to travel up the elevator and seeing all kinds of whatever, you know, you're in feces or whatever within the elevator. So you're going into the system, and you're looking at the substandard living condition that you're faced with every day. And, you know, so this is an added stress, this is an added anxiety for children. But what happened is that the black Muslims of America decided to arm themselves. Because even though the awareness schools had shut down, they managed to meet in their homes. I mean, that showed resilience. They managed to meet in the park. They managed to meet in community centers in order to continue fighting for the rights, their rights and the rights of their children. They noticed and they identified some things that had been placed within the records of the child. Anxiety, stress that related to child's ability to learn. And we can see that some of the things that they did was apply to make every attempt to apply Islam and some aspect of Islam, the Qur'an and Hadith to help their child. So they came up with meal times. And so they had people who said, well, we can provide meals for the daycare or we can provide meals for the schools. And they would drop off these meals for the children so they would have an adequate diet. So that became an active forum for them in order to reduce a lot of the anxiety and stress in children's lives. Some were effective and so were not. They reminded them, parents reminded their children when they get home to make the salat. So if they weren't anxious, they weren't anxious at home. If they had worries, they weren't worried that much at home, at least not noticed. Because at that particular time, we have to keep in mind that there was a vernacular known item that was said among the elders. That what you hear and what you see, you stay quiet. In other words, zip your lip. You don't say anything about it for fear that harm would come to the family or to the child. Now that was something that was stemming from slavery and also it became a carryover into their day to day lives. And why does it continue to exist? Because the elders have held themselves true to this. And some of the younger people incorporated the same principle is that the secret exists with them until the grave. In other words, I should say it goes in the grave with them. So they ignore the realities of problems that were pre obviously that they were obviously faced with, whether it was sleep disorder or are acting out in the classrooms or in the home setting. They ignore these things because they said if you ignore it, it'll go away. So some of the practices they use when they saw, let's say their children that were anxious or for themselves, music and drumming, plenty of outside food and entertainment that calmed them down. And thinking about pleasant things and not worrying about the adversities that were occurring in the neighborhood. So those were some of the things that they attempted to apply to the best of their ability, not ignoring the realities that as a child is growing up, things may not be the same. I know we can talk about how we address these issues and how we address these pains. And one thing that we do have to learn and know is like according to David Williams from the National Institute on Health, he states that 23% of black report every single day discrimination. That builds up into trauma. That causes people to have little ability to make decisions to response the stress, attention and why they seize that as ADHD as anxiety, as something else. And we fail to see that although we have these things going on in our everyday, we are also very resilient. And we know how to support ourselves, how to manage our own emotions, how to behave around individuals. When we open up and talk about all of these trauma that we have to let's say somebody that is outside of our religion, outside of our culture, they first have to add a label to it. So let's see how we can open to another Muslim, another African American, somebody that knows our culture, knows where we come from and see how that individual can support us to become more resilient. So again, it starts with us having open communication and open feelings. Our males for one thing, they are built to not show that much emotion. They are built to be that tough person. And so we have to open that wall and show them that no, you can be open with us. You can start talking to us. You can start communicating because that's where we learn what's going on and how we can support you. So again, and this is one thing that Dr. Sakia talks about, that extended family. When students go away to college, they cut off that family, but we need to learn how to keep them with us, how to communicate what's going on and how they are able to address those issues that come up. And also, as we talked about, how do we create that Muslim community where we create wellness? That's something that we have to work on to be at peace when people talk about their personal life and their personal experience and not be as judgmental as they or society is. I'd like to add to that is that when we talk about the Black Muslim history, and I'm just going to tie this in together, is that when they were in fight-of-flight, not everyone remained in the United States. Some left to go to Saudi Arabia. Some went to Avenue Q, New Mexico to live because Saudi had purchased land there. Some went to the south and lived among a place called Al-Madina. And some just generally left, period. They took their family, picked up and left. Some went to the west coast in order to live, to maintain some sort of sense. Those who left to the Middle East and other countries came back. And what they came back with was hope. And so some of the things that they saw and they started educating people about. Now again, this is the government had changed. People had settled into the nuclear family construct. Kids were already messed up. Parents were already messed up. They were single-head of household. Men had left the home. Drug addiction was all over the place. Prostitution and pimping was just prevalent. It was a hot mess. So when they came and began to interact with people in those areas, they started an educational program. And with that, here comes the ideal environment. So some of the things that they talked about, okay, well, if we're social workers, we're still invading their homes and still putting pressure on them. If they didn't comply, they would lose their funding. And so basically they said this. According to Islam, now the application of Islam is beginning to take place in a desperate situation. The basic principles under, as they quoted, the basic principles under client therapy relationship, be it school or off-school setting, because they saw the need that mental health was needed at this point, is for the therapist to get to know the client's background, be more familiar. So they became an advocate for mom and her child. They went there, they had these organizations, and they went with them with this kind of language. They said the effects of wellness process serves as a strength and bond between therapist and client relationship. Each therapist should base their, even though their skills may be different in ability and approach, the key factor in dealing with a Muslim, a Muslim is different than dealing with a non-Muslim, because they're not coming from the same criteria. So they try to push the envelope to say, you need to study more about Allah and the Quran and things like that to educate the school system. And did it work? We'll talk about it later. They tried to educate the social worker. I mean, it came to a point that social worker refused to come because they would stand in the doorway to ask and interrogate the social worker, so the social worker ultimately gave up. But basically, what they did was encourage new values, encourage strength to make change in light of the adversities that people were experiencing at that particular time. And that was welcomed. Do you like the heads? So let's move on to how do we create this wellness around us? How do we create a community where we're safe to address mental health, to address the trauma that we've been through? How do we do that without getting labels, getting stigmas? How do we are able to open up without people saying, well, you need medication. You need this to get through that. Or, oh my gosh, I can't believe you went through that. And then move on. Let's see how we can sit in the conversation and make sure that when you walk away from that conversation, that person felt that they were heard, that they were understood for what they're going through and know that there's someone else out there who understood them and is able to support them on their journey. So I know Dr. Sakia talked about Cynthia Clara Mastin and how they explored that Medina period. You want to elaborate on that? Oh, absolutely. And so one of the things that the... This is something that happened on the West Coast. And as I mentioned, when you're bringing immigrants to the West Coast, when you're bringing those Muslims, the black Muslims that were there in the critical time of life, now granted they seemed to be more functional because they grew up outside of the area. So they weren't affected by the same pressures and racism and bigotry and labeling that the ones who stayed behind. So here they are, they ended up, some of them ended up in on the West Coast. So let's look at this prototype between the 1980s to 2010. This prototype was different unlike the ones that you may see in different locations throughout the United States where black Muslims exist. Where they are across the other states, you see the line of demarcation. You see the masjid of the black Muslims, the masjid of the Bosnian, the masjid of the Arabs, and the masjids of the Indo-Bakistanis, all divided. But what we have seen, what we did, we have people travel and they brought back this kind of wisdom. Why don't we create a new prototype? So here we are in California and we're looking at what was brought to us. And we look more specifically at why don't we sense since the environment is already diverse. You had Yemenis, you had people from Palestine, you had Indian-Pakistanis from various reasons. You had Asians. You had every walk of life in California. And some of the things that they did, as a women folk, meeting together for a weekly palika intervention. This is a go-to. Meet weekly for, and the men did the same thing to upgrade their skills. Secondly they did, is they started an Islamic school very based on it with the little kids and they took part in the education and formation of the minds. So people didn't mind going to the small Islamic educational school. Now again, we're talking about an international community as that new prototype. From that, this took about, let's say an estimated a 15 to 20 years, 20 years, span of time. But the motivation was there behind the women and Muslim men that were there. And again, it was not a matter of the black Muslim, it was a matter of international behavior. So the education was one, the ongoing holocausts, and then they started planning socials. And the socials may entail outside socials of the home, going camping and having some parties at the homes to generate social ability and mannerisms. They brought their families from overseas and guess what? Then the black Muslims said, okay, I'm going to bring my family, bring my parents to visit. And so there was an overlapping and also the copying and they saw positive results. People began to interact, visit each other. People began to experience these, like non-Muslims and Muslims to visit international homes and set with them and ate and had good social times together. So they had mentorships for the children. They had big celebrations, especially during Ramadan and Eid, they would decorate the homes, decorate outside and also incorporate some of what is done here, get the kids all dressed up and then they go to the masjid. The masjid became a flavor place to be. There was also social activity there. So it became contagious. They had, they started a charity group where they began to cook. There were women who were just this massive cooking skills and they would take foods to homes of Muslims in the community who needed food, clothing and the masjid got involved in that as well. They were also involved in making sure that the men who were unemployed come employed. So they created these jobs because they opened up supermarkets. They opened up all kinds of marketplaces. The place was flooded with marketplaces or if it were engineering they would help and support that person. Or if they were in prison and they were being parole, they had a parole setting for the ex-offenders and they would come out and help them and assist them in acclimating society. Some women even married based on those conditions and they shipped them out to their country to get more social ability. A lot of these, the more socials added up where they started organizing dress-up parties, weddings that were elaborate, but who did it? It was the community that organized these settings because the end goal was to decrease divorce, increase marriages. And excessive volunteer work and I mentioned the donations and visiting the sick also visiting various places of conferences and meeting with different people sharing their ideologies and not being afraid to speak out. This was the prototype. So it increased the bond between the Muslims, the immigrant Muslims to the those of black Muslims and white Muslims and as such. So it became a positive prototype for resources, problem solving and communication. It was a good time. Thank you so much sister Tiffany. Do you mind ending us with just a little bit of a summary of what the black community can do to attain wellness and then a call to action for the rest of the community to provide these safe spaces. So one thing that I would say is that we have to start with our young children. We have to start with educating them on how to be able to explore and talk about how they're feeling. There's a saying that says that a research I think it is one in every three black children have been exposed to at least two to eight adverse childhood experience. And with that being said how do we work with them so that they know that those are not normal experience in everyone's life. We can't say that for our counterparts black, Asian, we can never have those statistics but it's the community that we live in that we're we keep seeing children come out of and we're not supporting them how much of those individuals that their school have a nursing site a psychiatrist a psychologist or even a social worker that they can walk into every single day and talk to. So we as parents, we need to start advocating for those little things in the school we need to start having those tangible things being accessible to everyone we can create it in our community and in our message can we have a psychiatrist on hand, someone who is able to see someone at the drop of a dime or have a phone call with a 24 hour service where we're just for emotional support most people although they have that close family that close friend they want something that's not biased because you know when you go to your girlfriend they're gonna be like oh let's get the person but you want someone who will be more objective and give you something that's based on your belief on your religion on how life's supposed to be and so we have to start working on having a safe space created in our mashing in our homes, in our school and let's see how us as a Black Muslim can start creating that having that dialogue on where we can create that safe space so I'll end with that I'd like to add something to that for the Black Muslim families of the nuclear family style who managed to isolate themselves from the extended family a good thread that we could share as a healer is to find a common thread toward communication without penalty without punishment without bringing up at the onset of a visit those negatives but focus on other aspect of building positive relationships first build that bond and continue the communication continue working with the extended family because we don't know if they have felt what you have felt but at least start on the onset as communication with communication We really appreciate your time we're going to move to the Q&A soon we do have some questions already in the chat in the Q&A box we will have some links posted in the chat with some additional resources and toolkits that some organizations have put together that way the conversation doesn't end now it's more of an opener so that we can do our work afterwards so sisters ahead will post those in the chat she also posted a feedback form we would like to always improve our programming so if you can take about two minutes to do that at some point today and also Dr. Zakia and sister Tiffany both offer therapy services and information about that will also be posted in the chat in case anybody feels the need to do some counseling afterwards so I will go ahead and share some of those questions I will actually begin with some comments that were in the chat in case you missed them as somebody mentioned most of the time you don't know how to express your feelings I know sister Tiffany were talking a little bit about that being a barrier so if you want to elaborate on what are ways we can express our feelings in a healthy way so I know most people when they get uncomfortable and or there's something very emotional that comes up they tend to laugh it off or say I'll talk about it another time for us we need to sit in that conversation and ask the question again and let them know that it is safe to cry it is safe to say anything to me because everything that you talk about is just between both of us and let them know if this is the time for you to cry let's do it let's get out that feeling that's how we start working on what's the deep root of the emotion that you're going through right now so start talking with just how are you doing today and wait for them to answer that question and then just nodding it's okay there's a little thing that I have on my board that says when somebody says it's okay there's something going on deeper than that when somebody smiles and say oh my god had a good day you know they really had a good day but it's those little sights that you hear in their voice or you see in their face make sure you are very attentive so when they say certain things you can address it right away thank you so much sister Tiffany Dr. Zicky I think this question would be appropriate for you because you were talking about the special ed and the school systems the sister said I have a friend from Ethiopia whose three year old daughter is being labeled as autistic and her mom is being pressured to send her to a special ed school what resources could she use to fight back against this labeling well one of the resources that's available to her is a book that is published for special ed and it is for parents so it's written by a man by the name of Leitz W.R.I.G.H.T Peter W.D. Wright and I'll just show this right here this is a great resource guide okay and having a resource guide and you sitting together with other women and just other families and in discussion this is an empowered book so the more we know about the rights of ourselves as parents to the right of your child you become the best advocate I have seen at many IEPs 504 meetings regarding children a whole team of families show up because if you're going along you feel intimidated by the jargon, by the language if you're unfamiliar if there is a language barrier you can request an interpreter so these are some of the rights that are available to you if you are your children feel that the assessment was not up to par that there may have been some bias review it look through the book to see what areas that you can use to apply to those areas of concern it's an easy reader for any parent level and I think you'll understand and use it I know one my son started moving around a lot when I was doing school and my son is the only child so his resilience he makes friends easily he is very vocal with getting to know individuals the school he moved into again because of the high level that the school is in we moved him into that school district they're not used to kids who are that functional that's so attached to making friends and vocal the first few days I would say about a week I got an email saying we think we need to do an assessment on your son for ADHD my first thing was that's his resilience showing up after the first two weeks of him making friends you will see the difference don't do anything without my consent two weeks three weeks later, not a single word so you got to stand up for your child you know how your child is at home that's the sentence that they're comfortable with they won't change going to a school, they will have the same reaction at school so let them be aware of it on the first few days because some of them come in with they want a perfect setting but that's not how students are and there are times when teachers want a quiet room and they want this kid to be quiet so they're going to make they're the first to raise their hand to say Medicaid because I don't want to do the work and I think this kid needs to be quiet so I can have a quiet room so sometimes it takes finding a teacher of match and skills that is able that's in tune to your child's need and you have the right to switch classrooms you have that right and if the school does not is not able to match your need and you've done all the assessments or if you haven't done the assessment there is always another school for teachers so you do have an option you don't have to settle for one teacher yeah they also have teachers aid if your class student doesn't have a teacher's aid request one that means the teacher gets that extra support for the students then and sometimes they're put down because the parents are not stepping in asking for the resource if your that extra support you step in and make sure that your vocal with the principal there let them know that that classroom needs a teacher aid get it done yes in addition to requesting a student study team meeting worried by you're able to bring in medical or pediatric reports the pediatrics will make an assessment to rule out whatever they're claiming or rule in to the claim of whatever is present so you can have your pediatrician or you can have as many people that you desire to attend the SST is what they call it the student study team meeting to reveal the content of concern that you can best advocate for your child in a learning setting and always get a copy always get copies we never walk out of there with a signature and they have the copies you're entitled to a copy of a QM file and you're entitled to the signature page so that's your bite there was a similar question I don't know if you want to supplement it but I think the answer would probably be similar it says can you speak to options available to parents to exit their children out of special ed especially when special ed referral was unnecessary clinician error bias so I think it's very similar to the previous questions or anything you wanted to add to it the exit process is a little different you can't just arbitrarily pull out so it's a due process as they call it a due process and so the due process is that SST that I just mentioned that's the starting point and then the parent write a letter to the school principal administrator and the teacher mainly the administrator people that you are requesting this exit by such and such a time so you will bring and doing so they will bring the team to the table along with the resource specialist to listen to your concern and to make sure teachers reports are all online and you've done all your interventions like remedial reading or someone you've hired to confirm that your your scores are current and above the performance of the school so it's not just I feel when we move it is a due process and the reason why if something happens in the academic world by making that move away from where they are they may be held liable so you know they always say cover your butt do your bring your proof to claim the exit and it is a due process and it is necessary for the exiting process now even though you exit you can leave a clause that in case something happens in the future you can re-enter Insha'Allah there was a follow-up sister Tiffany to your answer about emotions the question it was in the chat what about if the person that triggered or caused the trauma doesn't want to hear or allow you to express yourself you know what I've had that question several times from just clients talking about it one thing that I always talk about there's different ways for you to to you know you know you know what I've had that question several times from just clients talking about it one thing that I always talk about there's different ways for you to express what happened to you to maybe that individual for instance sexual abuse or I would say domestic violence it's very hard for you to talk to that individual about what they've done to you especially when it's one-on-one in person and that person doesn't want to hear it because they really don't believe that they've harmed you in any way at all so you can do this in two different ways one, write a letter it takes so much for you to write down how you feel and leave it for that individual so that they one can read and have the option to not respond or have the option to respond because you don't want to be the aggressor when you come to talking to someone they might feel that you're being aggressive with them so write a letter another one that you can do is start journaling it helps when you journal how you feel your past experience and take note of how you're moving on over that and possibly if you still want to confront that individual about what they've done to you you can pass the journal to them and tell them it's on them if they want to talk about it after they finish reading but this is how it's affected you in your life and they don't need to talk to you but this is how you want them to know how you feel right now I'd like to add to that if I may prayer is a very powerful tool and sometimes when we're limited to a conversation or the use of the right word and the right setting or we may feel shy about our approach we can take that to prayer prayer is a powerful source in asking Allah to give you I mean just talk to a lot like you're talking to like a person in front of you and just ask Allah to give you the tools, the time the words to be able to bring this out to this person in the most effective way so that it's understood rather than being misunderstood and just take that and over time you'll get that strength over time that opportunity inshallah will open up where you're able to express that thought in a realistic way inshallah so we have another question what can we do to support our adolescents other than medication oh wow there's so much tools to work with first of all I always talk about meditation changing someone's diet even working with different counseling expressive art especially when it comes to adolescents how hard to use their time effectively there's also culturally based healing art for you to use I know for instance I also have I use you say animal therapy I bought a puppy for my dog that takes up a lot of his time but it's always about that self-care how do you have your adolescent move from different transition during the day from school back to home doing chores homework even in college just applies to them from getting up in the morning what do you do do you pray then go to class maybe have your side job but in that full day where is the self-care happening where do you add that in to make sure that you're taking that time for yourself how are you doing meditation how are you exercising to keep healthy what did you eat keep a journal of how your diet is because little things that change in your day actually adds up over time and it affects you so keep a journal of how your day went so that when something happens you can go back and see what's going on but there's so much ways for you to change how someone moves from medication and I always say start with meditation start with changing your diet your exercise and your routine for the day and see how it helps and I don't want to say just get off medication please make sure if you're on meds check with your doctor make sure that they know that that's what you want to do and how to get off safely and what are the consequences also with adolescents it's that age of discernment it's an age where they're learning right from wrong and judgment it's very important so in their cognitive world and as your body is going through all these physiological and emotional changes is storytelling there's so many stories that can relate to their age that will tie in to what they're going through on an emotional level and psychological level and behavior you tie those end and then parents get involved in taking them to the master so they can meet other men or other you know other females and they have these social circles where they're meeting and having a discussion because they're approaching the goal is to get them through that time period to adult life successfully so their concerns is very real and let them ask questions and always keep the channels of communication open with them and listen listen to them and listen to some of the things that they say which could be very functional and try not to treat them as children we want them to be like an adult inshallah and we will end with this one comment which I'm going to turn into a question in case we do have educators on their group she's the sister says sometimes teachers lack these emotional intelligence and knowledge for not making the teaching about themselves and how they want to teach instead having a mindset to teach and educate the child according to their potential and abilities so maybe we can end with some advice for educators or anybody who works with children and adolescents on how to increase emotional intelligence I know I've always been taught that not every single person learn the same way there's tangible I was doing math when I went to Cal and doing studies with these students I've always known that you touch you feel something you see something you read something they're all different senses that you're using and that all students use these senses together some of them pick two of them and that's how they learn teachers need to figure out how to communicate with all these four senses to make sure that one of them will get through most of them come in with an agenda right on the board and that's it they need to figure out how to move and nurture these students with all of these four senses to add to that the SST Spreadsheet is a useful tool for parents and teachers and administrative staff whereby you can hold teacher accountable to something that is in writing and so when you look at the strength of the child, the weakness of the child and you look at interventions and a timeline that these interventions need to be addressed and describe them in detail will help teacher understand specifically what the needs are and we set up a follow-up date so that's it and don't spread it out too far but make it soon where parent is involved in the Q&A so that SST is very very important to holding teacher accountable and parents as well Insha'Allah, thank you so much Dr. Zakiya and Sister Tiffany for allowing us to learn from you today and thank you attendees I do want to share quickly our resources so if you are you able to see the screen are we good? here we go I hope you enjoyed Insha'Allah this event and you don't want to have FOMO and miss any of our other events you can follow us on all of our social media channels also if you feel like you benefited in any way please consider donating to the donation link will be in the chat so that we can continue Insha'Allah having these resources for a wonderful community and Insha'Allah we will end with dua'at together Bismillahirrahmanirrahim Ya Allah thank you for gathering us here this evening and allow us to always have a heart that feels for others we thank you Allah for allowing us to make it here accept our intentions to get closer to you we ask you Allah to place love between all of our hearts increase our love for you and towards your messengers and provide us the health and strength to worship you the way you like to be worshiped Ya Allah expand our hearts and facilitate our affairs have mercy on our weakness and our anxieties accept our works rectify our affairs and preoccupy us with our remembrance of you make us prefer goodness grant us above and beyond what we hope for almost merciful of those who show mercy make us a source of blessing and mercy for others unite the hearts of everybody in this room everyone who intended to be here and everyone who is not here with us grant love, compassion and empathy between our hearts provide us with the strength to continually uplift each other Ya Allah we ask you for the humility of the humble and the companionship of the upright we ask you for abundance in every goodness and immunity from every harm Ya Allah grant us a solution and a way out of every concern that troubles us and grant us provision from where we do not anticipate it Ya Allah grant us a resolution and a way out of our troubles inspire our hearts to be grateful for you in every situation make us aware of the value of your blessings through their ceaseless continuation there is no strength or power except through you the most exalted and majestic Ya Allah we each have personal struggles we are dealing with and you promise with hardship there will always be ease remove from our hearts any fears or inhibitions and replace them with an ever increasing boldness to live each moment as best as we can Ya Allah some of us are carrying personal trauma or trauma passed on from previous generations Ya Allah grant us strength and resilience and break the trauma from passing down to our children Ya Allah the burdens of life sometimes seem too heavy to bear the anxiety and anguish that sits inside of us feels bigger at times in the world around us give us audacious hearts that can overcome that pain inside hearts that help us to carry each burden with ease those of how heavy it seems make us people who find strength through selflessness and not selfishness and sincerity not self centeredness Ya Allah forgive us for our shortcomings and guide and bless us all Subhanakallahu ma bi hamdika Shadu an la ilaha la ant Astaghfiruqa wa atubu iraik Glory is to you O Allah and praises to you I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship but you I seek your forgiveness and repent to you please don't forget that we do have resources for therapists on madistan.org slash resources