Building A World Village

Harvey D. Linder, Ph.D., LP

Old African proverb:

Question: "How do you eat an elephant?"

Answer: "One bite at a time."

We've set out on an ambitious undertaking: to build a website that lists all of those persons of African descent who work in and act as resources to the behavioral health field. Our plan is to start small.  That is, start with one community in one town, and then grow by successively adding additional communities as we learn and make the platform easier for our users. It will take time.  But eventually, it will pass a tipping point and the site will take on a life of its own, mushrooming into the vision we started with.

In addition to the fact that the recently adopted changes will allow users to update their own profiles, two policy decisions will help us to realize this dream.  The first is that individual listings will remain ABSOLUTELY FREE to all of our target users FOREVER (or as close to forever as a site like this is needed). We don't plan on ever charging individual providers to be listed here.

The second departure from other sites is that we will list people who work in the field, regardless of licensure or certification. This may seem to be not a good idea. But our goal is not to vouch for the competency of people listed here, but to assist others in their search by making it easier to find the providers of color in their communities by creating a comprehensive list of who's out there. The providers can list their license status, degrees, and certification if any. So seekers will still be able to check them out through other means.

For the time being, we don't have plans to activate the rating or comment features that the platform provides until we can assure ourselves that the feedback we offer is meaningful and not just rantings of internet trolls.

At this time, we are still in a pre-launch mode, even though the site is quite live. We are still building content, redesigning the navigation menus, and checking for missing links and bugs. So, do feel free to give us feedback.  And we will continue to keep you posted on our progress.

If you are a behavioral health provider who also happens to be a person of African descent, you should be listed on this site.  So should your colleagues who fit that description. You can help by creating a profile for yourself, letting us know what problems or challenges you run into. And then encouraging the other behavioral health professionals (and students) you know to do the same thing.

Thanks for joining us on this journey.