What MiraVista Reminded Me About Nursing, Mental Health, and Family Legacy
By Ayanna C. Crawford
My mother’s mother was a nurse, my mother, too, and now my daughter, Sarah is headed to nursing school this fall. I thought about this on a recent visit with State Representative Orlando Ramos to MiraVista Behavioral Health Center in Holyoke.
My first profession was as an educator – I hold a Master’s Degree in education from Springfield College – and now I am now the owner of my own multi-service marketing and public relations firm.
Not too long ago, I made a visit to MiraVista in order to learn more about the Behavioral Health Center’s inpatient psychiatric services for adolescents and adults and its continuum of outpatient substance use recovery programming.
Listening to the dedication of the staff in talking about their work recalled words and images around the work of my grandmother and mother, both pioneers in nursing in different ways, and the life lessons on empathy and problem solving I learned from them.
My grandmother, Mary Hurston Barksdale who died in 1992, opened the former Hurstdale Rest Home in 1963 on Acorn Street in Springfield that for decades was the only African-American owned nursing home in Western Massachusetts.
She worked for what is now Baystate Medical Center and was one of the first black Licensed Practical Nurses to work for the Holyoke Visiting Nurse Association.
My mother, Sylvia Barksdale-Wilson who died in 2018, earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from American International College in 1989. She served as Nursing Director at Hurstdale, and worked until her retirement in 2000 as a Registered Nurse for the Springfield Visiting Nurse Association (VNA) where she established the first ever psychiatric unit/program with the VNA. Much of her focus was on better assessing and addressing the mental health needs of patients to help them remain functioning and at home.
She also worked per diem during this time on the adolescent psychiatric unit at the former Charles River Hospital West in Chicopee.
My mother took a holistic approach to patient care, and not just in terms of physical well-being. She understood the need for individuals with chronic mental illness to be better supported and listened to in their strong desire to live independent lives.
She took the same approach in her personal life, incorporating both the emotional and physical in always being health conscious. She loved being outdoors, working in my grandmother’s garden and encouraging her children as we grew older to make time for self-care and exercise.
She was passionate about her work like her mother, who was also a social activist in addressing inequality, and dedicated to improving the lives of those in her community and those she served. She wanted in her work, especially with those challenged by a mental illness, for everyone to be recognized as just as human as everyone else and to be treated with dignity.
This was my mother’s humanity that I witnessed when individuals – whom I learned much later were often her patients – would come up and hug her with gratefulness in the grocery store and even after her retirement she worked to promote community health through fairs, and numerous initiatives to benefit the emotional health and wellness of residents.
Her satisfaction in nursing, especially with patients managing a mental health condition, was knowing they were being provided services and individualized treatment plans that she helped put into place.
She believed that all human beings have ups and downs and would always need someone to help them. I try to be that person in my work with constituents as my mother was – and my grandmother – for those they advocated for and served.
I was grateful to be reminded of all this during my recent visit with the staff at MiraVista where I sensed the same compassion and non-judgmental support to help patients with acute mental health challenges manage those challenges and return to their lives in the community.
Ayanna Crawford, Chief of State for State Representative Orlando Ramos, is a Springfield native and graduate of Westfield State University with a Master’s Degree in education from Springfield College. She is the President of AC Consulting and Media, and founder of Take the Mic.