CHAMPions

Community Healing and Mental Health Project (CHAMP) is a nonprofit dedicated to fostering a community where conversations about mental health are encouraged, resources are available, and prioritizing healing take center stage. CHAMP focuses on the ZIP codes of 76104, 76105, and 76116, areas that CHAMP founder Lachelle Goodrich identified as “low-to-moderate income and under-resourced.”

Goodrich, a professional counselor, has worked for five years to fine-tune her nonprofit, advocating for self-care, meaningful conversations, and policy change. Next week, CHAMP will leverage all of this energy into Nurture & Thrive: A Black Maternal Health Experience. The event aligns with the annual national Black Maternal Health Week commemoration (which likely won’t be celebrated by the federal government this year). Started by the Black Mamas Matter Alliance several years ago, the week of April 11-18 advocates for policies and programs that improve Black maternal health. The theme this year is Healing Legacies: Strengthening Black Maternal Health Through Collective Action and Advocacy.

Goodrich said that at Nurture & Thrive, CHAMP will “provide a self-care experience, where mothers can learn about resources available to them.”

Participants can receive a care box with supplies for the baby and themselves, resources, and tools for mental wellness. The event is also sponsored by BRAVE/R Together, which aims to reduce all inequities (including health) in the 76104 ZIP code.

Maternal death rates in Texas have been a national embarrassment for over a decade, and 76104 has the second-highest rate of maternal deaths in the state. Since 2013, Texas has released a nonpartisan biennial report called the Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Review (MMMR). The 2024 iteration confirms that the death rate for all Texas mothers remained fairly high at 24 deaths per 100,000 live births. While white Texas women die during pregnancy at a rate of 16 women per 100,000 births, Black Texas women die at a rate of 39 per 100,000 births –– more than double the rates of their white peers. The worst part of this story is that firearm deaths account for almost 10% of overall deaths of new mothers in this state. About 80% of those pregnancy-related deaths were preventable.

More alarming is that severe maternal health complications are rising as well –– conditions like infection, pregnancy-related hypertension, aneurysms, significant mental health challenges, and obstetric hemorrhage, where post-delivery bleeding from a woman’s uterus can’t be stopped. Many of these conditions are also preventable or at least predictable. White Texas women experience these complications at a rate of 72 per 100,000 births. Black women experience severe maternal morbidity at about double the rate of their white peers (134 per 100,000 births).

The MMMR recommends some proven initiatives, including helping women already struggling with mental health challenges to access care and supporting them during and after pregnancy. The report also favors expanding access to doulas –– trained professionals who provide personalized support from pregnancy through childbirth and into the tenuous postpartum period when women are often left alone to care for their babies and their healing bodies. Additional funding for prenatal screening for depression, general preventive women’s health care, and treatment of postpartum depression were also recommended.

Those recommendations fit squarely into the mission of CHAMP. Goodrich is a former social studies teacher at Stripling Middle School and has worked with Housing Solutions in resident services. She helped families transition post-Hurricane Katrina, then helped families in Stop Six access workforce training and education.

As a teenage parent, Goodrich said the social worker in her high school helped her “navigate the systems because I was a teenage mom.” Goodrich defied the odds and became a teacher in her mid-20s, but her background and experiences led her to want to do more. “I decided I would take my gift and passion and put it to work.”

As a licensed professional counselor (LPC), Goodrich has a passion for “helping people see things from a different perspective, working with kids, and understanding how our childhood plays a part in our adult life.”

CHAMP is aimed at specifically addressing what Goodrich calls the “T word” — trauma. Childhood trauma creates changes in the brains of young people, and the damage may be felt for years. Starting in 2020, Goodrich saw a need for counseling around the social isolation and chaos brought on by COVID. CHAMP began to offer free short-term counseling sessions for youth ages 11-17 who have experienced gun violence, abuse, or other trauma, aiming to reduce juvenile incarcerations and increase positive coping skills.

In 2023, Goodrich said she had an idea come to her in a dream: Why couldn’t she take CHAMP’s services directly to the community in the form of a mobile unit? Mammography mobile units took off in the early 2000s as a way to bring needed services to people not visiting the places where the services were offered. Inspired by the Black Heart Association service van, Goodrich said she thought, “We don’t have anything that is a mental-health response on wheels.”

And that began CHAMP’s Mobile Mental Health Unit. Unlike first-response crisis units like police, ambulance, and fire and rescue, which arrive at a crisis immediately, Goodrich envisions CHAMP’s mobile unit appearing within 48-72 hours of a traumatic incident to offer group therapy, education assistance, and a virtual reality program aimed at rapid healing. CHAMP purchased the basic mobile unit last year, and Goodrich is currently raising funds to fully equip and outfit the VR piece.

As a counselor, Goodrich and her staff at iLegacy Consulting and Counseling have built up a large business with virtual counseling, but she said that sometimes, there is no substitute for in-person sessions.

“We all are different learners,” she said. “Virtual counseling has worked wonders, and we’ll continue to have these things in place. But if you’ve been exposed to gun violence and trauma, it brings a different experience.”

Goodrich said it’s important for people in situations of trauma –– whether it’s gun violence or a maternal mental-health need –– not to have to seek out the help. And navigating health insurance for services –– especially Medicaid –– is “a hassle [because] there’s no timeframe on healing,” she said, but insurers often restrict or limit payment for services.

CHAMP’s services are culturally competent, which Goodrich said is crucial “in order for people to feel safe to process their emotions.”

That’s true whether you live in a neighborhood impacted by poverty or if you’re a pregnant woman.

There’s a bit of good news for pregnant Black women, who are most at risk in Tarrant County. Taking one of the MMMR recommendations to heart, the United Way of Tarrant County has already trained 120 men and women in the 76104 ZIP code to be doulas. These community members have a set of life experiences that parallel the expectant mothers’ and their partners’. The doula services include coaching, advocacy, and assistance through pregnancy and delivery and into the critical first six weeks post-partum. The partnership links community advocates and medical providers and leads to better, healthier outcomes for mothers and their babies.

The agency is also implementing TeamBirth, a program designed to improve patient care by giving women the tools they need to improve communication with their medical providers for a safer birth and better recovery experience. TeamBirth was pioneered at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in the Northeast and was integrated into a small cohort of women and their providers across Baylor Scott & White, JPS Health Network, and Texas Health Resources in January.

Information on the state’s Maternal Health website has not been updated since 2021, so if you’re looking for statistics, you’ll have to go to partner sites, like the United Way of Tarrant County or the Texas Women’s Healthcare Coalition. Nobody can argue that Texas Black women and their babies have been in a life and death struggle for health care for the last decade, across four presidential administrations. Thanks to CHAMP, BRAVE/R Together, and other partnering agencies, a change may be coming. To support CHAMP or learn more, visit Facebook.com/CHAMPTexas.

Longtime Weekly contributor Laurie James is a board member of CHAMP.

Nurture & Thrive: A Black Maternal Wellness Experience
2pm-4pm Sun, Apr 13, at Fellowship Corner, 1601 New York Av, Fort Worth. Free. Text “Mommy” to 817-372-0353.