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COURIER L 18 IFE, AUGUST 14-20, 2020
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CHECKIN’ IN WITH:
Assemblywoman
Mathylde Frontus
BY MEAGHAN MCGOLDRICK
Mathylde Frontus is a New York
State Assemblywoman currently serving
the neighborhoods
of Bay Ridge, Dyker
Heights, Coney Island,
and Sea Gate, among
other neighborhoods.
To celebrate the relaunch
of the Bay Ridge
Courier, we’re “checkin’
in” with each of the area’s
representatives to
discuss a topic of their
choosing. This week, we
caught up with Frontus
about her work to destigmatize
mental illness
— and how 2020
has underscored the
need for mental health
services.
Assemblywoman Mathylde Frontus.
Mathyle Frontus’s offi ce
Brooklyn Paper: How do you see
the current political, social and
economic climates having an affect
on one’s mental health?
Mathylde Frontus: The beginning
of the year, we didn’t know we were going
to be faced with two unprecedented
moments in our nation’s history — the
fi rst being a literal global pandemic,
with no hyperbole — and the second,
as you know, some people have said
that the protests happening around
the country have become our second
pandemic, as a matter of speaking.
Those two pandemics are affecting
the mental health of Americans
— and certainly the people in my district.
Whether it’s the toll of COVID —
worrying about the health and safety
of ourselves and our loved ones — or
the racial injustices, and the killing
of unarmed Americans. Both of these
things are having a signifi cant affect
on people’s mental health — especially
for Black Americans who feel personally
victimized every time we have to
see a video of people that look like us
getting killed.
BP: How does the topic of mental
health tie into your career?
MF: Mental health has been one of
my signature issues since the beginning
— it’s not my only one, but when
people think about me, I think mental
health is one of those things, they
know, is at the forefront of my mind.
That’s partly because of my academic
training, which has been in social
work and psychology, so it’s a topic
that I’ve always cared about. Just this
summer, I taught a class called Stigma
and Mental Health at my alma matter
and that course was important to me
because I think that mental health is
one of the last open stigmas that we
have in our society.
You can tell a total stranger that
you just got diagnosed with diabetes,
cancer or any
other type of prognosis
but there’s
a perception that
people think of us
as weak or that
there’s something
wrong and people
are afraid of
the costs that may
come with that admission.
BP: How does
the issue make
its way into your
legislative work?
MF: I’ve had
a range of legislation
that I’ve been
working on this year
One of the bills we worked on requires
emergency medical facilities to
provide immediate assessments of patients
experiencing a mental health issue.
If an ambulance comes and takes
your sister to the closest psychiatric
emergency room, she shouldn’t have to
just lay there and wait for a couple of
hours. Upon admission, there should
be some attention given and someone
should be there to provide counseling
and assess their risk of self harm.
In relation, we also introduced legislation
to make sure that those practitioners
do a minimum of some suicide
risk assessment and intervention
training — something that just seems
like it should already be in place, but
the fact is that it’s not the case.
We’ve also introduced a bill which
would mandate that mental health services
be provided to students in public
schools to determine whether or not
someone is in need of treatment. That
one is especially important to me, and
it has been well before I joined the Assembly.
BP: What do you want those who
may be struggling with their own
mental health to know?
MF: The city has so many services,
it’s pretty incredible. There’s a
24/7 hotline, 1-888-NYC-WELL. That
hotline is under the auspices of the
New York City Department of Health
and Mental Hygiene where any New
Yorker can call and have someone
speak to them if they’re in need of support
or if they’re going through something
— or if someone they know and
love needs support.
This conversation has been edited
for brevity. For the full interview, visit
BrooklynPaper.com.
/BrooklynPaper.com
/CAREERS
link
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