'Ghetto Therapy' Helps Cleveland Teens Heal

Lina Portman3 weeks ago

0 4 minutes read

When Walter Patton was a teenager, he turned to drugs and alcohol to cope with the trauma caused by the fatal shooting of his best friend. As an adult, he creates the space his younger self would have benefited from to process such grief. This space takes shape once a month under the name Teens Night and is part of its Ghetto Therapy mental health program.

“As a teenager, I don’t know anything about therapy,” he said. “It was a bit frowned upon. If you went to therapy, you were crazy.

Patton challenges this stigma every week during her Ghetto Therapy sessions, which began as a space for adults to connect with mental health services and licensed therapists. Children and adolescents have the same needs, he says.

Walter Patton has been hosting Teens Night at Ghetto Therapy since 2022.

“It was very important to me to create this evening for teenagers so that they could have a space to, one, feel comfortable, two, express whatever they need to talk about and three, not be judged,” he said.

Signal Cleveland caught up with Patton during Teens Night last Wednesday at the Cleveland Clinic's Langston Hughes Center. Teens and parents spent hours learning about each other and practicing holistic healing.

From left, Sa'Byon Harwell, Alexander Hawkins Jr. and Jayden Brown form an energetic line. Shannon Yarbrough, a holistic occupational therapist who leads the exercise, said forming this line helps connect participants' energies. “This is what we do as a community,” she said. “We heal collectively.”

DJ Dean looks out the window during a group chat. Patton asked the teens in attendance to break into groups and talk about their values. DJ said he appreciated his mother and his phone.

DJ Dean, 13, met Patton at Teens Night last month. Since then, he has spoken to her almost daily.

“It reminds me of myself when I was younger,” Patton said of DJ. “I faced the same obstacles.”

DJ stutters and he feels his peers judge him for it. At Teens Night, however, he feels safer. DJ “comes into himself,” said his mother Monique Jennings-Smith. He talks more and more with each session.

“People are afraid to be themselves,” DJ said. “Being here, I can be myself and not be judged.”

DJ Dean puts his arms around his mother, Monique Jennings-Smith. “Last month I decided to bring my son,” Jennings-Smith said. “And from then on it became an ongoing thing every Wednesday night.”

Holistic occupational therapist Shannon Yarbrough plays the singing bowl. Yarbrough suffers from multiple sclerosis and she found that holistic healing techniques helped treat her condition. “In my personal life, using energy medicine and sound therapy helps me be present every day as I deal with my MS,” she said. “Doing certain things with energy and sound keeps me going. I believe in this stuff so much.

Teenagers practice reiki exercises. Reiki is an energy healing technique that can help reduce stress and promote relaxation.

Teenagers and parents form an energy line.

DJ Dean (right) laughs while Alieza Bell (left) says she enjoys her bed and food during a group chat.

For Alisha Bell, a 16-year-old student at Saint-Martin de Porres high school, Teens Night is above all about fun. She likes meeting new people and thinking outside the box.

“They ate good food last time,” Bell said. “But I loved the people here, so I decided to come back because look at these amazing people.”

During her group chat, Alisha Bell said she values her mother. “It’s a real one, for real,” she said. “She doesn’t make me do anything I don’t want to do.”

Holistic occupational therapist Shannon Yarbrough teaches Reiki to teens and parents.

Eric “EŽ” Floyd holds his daughter Ice Ciré Floyd in his arms.

For young people growing up in Cleveland, three hours in a safe space can be life-changing, Patton said.

“There's unlimited access to weed, there's unlimited access to alcohol, there's unlimited access to dark and mild,” he said. “Access to free licensed therapists and mental health resources is very limited. It’s very important that they have another option.”

During a teenage party, Patton received a call that a young man had been killed in the King Kennedy housing complex in Central. It turns out he knew this young man. He was friends with a Teens Night regular.

“Just think, if he had been there that Wednesday, he would still be alive,” Patton said.

DJ's mother, Monique Jennings-Smith, stressed that Teens Night can help parents as much as their children. Attending ghetto therapy helped her connect with other parents and better manage her own emotional struggles. Raising a teenager can be complicated, she said. Teens Night creates a space to address these challenges.

“[DJ] could be out here on the streets,” Jennings-Smith said. “But it’s a place where I know for a fact that he’s safe and can form safe bonds with other kids.”