Over the past few years, more public figures within the Black community have opened up about their struggles with anxiety and depression, which has only increased under the COVID-19 pandemic. One entrepreneur and mental health advocate decided to create a new community to provide resources catering to Black women.
Jade D. Kearney is the founder and CEO of She Matters, a new, upcoming app and community designed to help support Black women through their mental health struggles. Kearney says that she was inspired to create the platform after suffering from depression following the birth of her daughter.
“I struggled with postpartum anxiety/OCD and could not find resources allocated toward Black women,” Kearney told BLACK ENTERPRISE via email. “I realized that our negative cultural stigmas toward mental health blended with maternal medical neglect is a dangerous combination for the mental health of Black mothers. As I began my postpartum mental health journey, I felt it was only right to create a space where Black women could go to where they felt supported and safe.”
Kearney says while other spaces have been popping up catering to Black people looking for mental health resources, many of them didn’t have any focus on Black mothers, specifically, in addition to being a Black woman living in America. “Systemic racism is at the crux of every avenue Black women navigate when seeking maternal health solutions and postpartum mental health solutions,” she said. “She Matters is focused on changing that path of uncertainty and neglect by providing a community of safety and trust.”
She went on to say
that users can expect to find all the necessary resources they need to help them locate a culturally competent therapist that can address their needs. “When I struggled through postpartum anxiety, one of the hardest things was trying to sift through all the information on the internet—much of which did not apply to me as a Black woman,” she says. “The She Matters platform cuts out the middleman and gets you resources that are useful to Black women at a very crucial period in any mother’s life.”