structural Racism: Behavioral Health Professionals’ Responsibilities

Structural racism affects behavioral healthcare through interconnected systems such as healthcare, housing, education, employment, income, media, credit, and criminal justice. These systems can create persistent disparities in access to care, treatment quality, service utilization, and behavioral-health outcomes.

This two-hour training will help behavioral health professionals examine how institutional policies and practices affect the individuals and communities they serve. Participants will explore documented disparities in behavioral healthcare, Maryland’s legal definition of structural racism, professional responsibilities under state law and licensing regulations, and practical strategies for developing more equitable and culturally responsive systems of care.

The workshop moves beyond individual bias to focus on organizational and systemic change. Participants will consider how structural racism can appear in assessments, workforce representation, crisis-response systems, data collection, policy decisions, access to services, and relationships between behavioral health organizations and the communities they serve.