[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Kevin Dedner (he/him/his) is the Founder and CEO of Hurdle Health, a provider of culturally intentional mental health care. Hurdle Health’s unique approach focuses on cultural humility and cultural responsiveness — training therapists to connect with clients whose backgrounds may be different from their own.

Through telehealth and group therapy options, Hurdle Health is transforming mental health care for historically marginalized communities who struggle with access and stigma.

Kevin is also the author of The Joy of the Disinherited, a collection of essays on trauma, oppression, and Black mental health.

In the first part of our mental health awareness series, Kevin shares his personal experiences with mental health care and the insights he has learned from his time at Hurdle Health.

In Full Health (IFH): What inspired you to found Hurdle Health?

Kevin Dedner: Our company was born out of my own failed experience with the mental health care system. I sought three therapists before I could find a therapist I could relate to. After my depression, I realized that so many of my friends were suffering from depression or had suffered from depression. The thesis of Hurdle Health is that the mental health care system just doesn’t work for everyone. So in many ways, I’m attempting to solve a problem that I experienced myself.

IFH: What unique obstacles impact access to and quality of mental health care for historically marginalized communities, and how does Hurdle Health address them?

Kevin Dedner: There are other barriers these communities face that we often talk about: lack of diversity in the workforce, the inability of some people to pay, insurance issues, and access to care. On top of these, at Hurdle Health, we talk often about mental health care for invisible barriers.

And I think the most significant invisible barrier is the lack of cultural humility and cultural responsiveness in the current mental health care system, which is why we train our therapists in evidence-based techniques that help them improve their cultural humility and cultural responsiveness.

Fifty percent of ethnic minorities terminate therapy prematurely — and 33% of the general population terminates therapy prematurely. At Hurdle Health, many of our clients are minorities, so the fact that we are retaining people in therapy longer is really remarkable.

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IFH: How does language around mental health care drive Hurdle Health’s approach?

Kevin Dedner: I think we’ve done America a real disservice over the last 20 years — not only in mental health — but in public health, by framing things around cultural competency. Culture is incredibly complex and the idea that you can become competent in someone else’s culture is a pretty heavy lift. At Hurdle Health, we use the language around intentionality, humility, and responsiveness very specifically because we’re trying to communicate very clearly the complexity of culture.

Our research and learning in the mental health space have come predominantly from how we support middle-class, white Americans with one single trauma. Our training at Hurdle Health tries to answer the question, “How do we equip the therapist to support people who may not have similar experiences?”

That’s where the ideas of humility and responsiveness come into play. What’s important in therapy is that people can feel safe and feel like their truth is being honored.

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Community Connections

Hurdle Health relied a lot on our investors at .406 Ventures and Seae Ventures, and we are so grateful for their support. Also, a shout out to Patrick Kennedy at the Kennedy Forum, Dan Gillison at NAMI, and Arthur Evans at the APA who are all tremendous thought leaders in this space.

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IFH: How can the In Full Health Learning & Action Community help you strengthen and scale your solution and its impact on the health of the communities you serve?

Kevin Dedner: I spent the first half of my career working in tobacco control and we were very clear on what we needed to do to defeat big tobacco. We used to call it the three-legged stool. We wanted to:

1. Increase the price of cigarettes
2. Have cessation programs in place for people who wanted to stop smoking
3. Have clean indoor air in public places

We made a radical shift in the culture of this country around smoking in a very short amount of time. I’m hoping to see that same type of advocacy, structure, agreement, and alignment in the mental health space — which can be leveraged by thought leaders and innovators working together in communities like the In Full Health Learning & Action Community. I think we desperately need it.

IFH: As a founder/innovator in the mental health space, how do you balance doing the work — which can be incredibly taxing and consuming — with your own mental health care?

Kevin Dedner: We’re a mental health company, and I try to practice what I preach. I just had to send a gentle reminder to my team that I require buffer time between my meetings. I just don’t allow people to schedule me back-to-back. I need time to process my thoughts before I move to the next meeting.

Preserving your mental health ultimately starts with the most basic things: A healthy diet, 8 hours of sleep, and getting some exercise. So, it starts there.

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How do you build and structure your life in a way that makes allowances for you to take good care of yourself and the people around you? How do you make sure that other people respect boundaries? What are the systems that you’ve put in place to preserve your mental health?

Kevin Dedner
Founder and CEO, Hurdle Health

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IFH: What do you hope to see in the mental health care space in the next 5 or 10 years? What makes you optimistic about the changes that you’re seeing?

Kevin Dedner: Number one, I am optimistic because of the richness of the conversations that we’re having right now. I’m also optimistic because of the actions that I see employers/payers taking to make sure that all of their members and employees have access to the type of mental health care services that they need. I’m also incredibly inspired by the solutions like ours that are rising in the marketplace.

I think that the population is going to be well-served because of the innovation that’s coming out in the mental health space. I’m optimistic because we’re elevating the inherent, systemic problems that need to be addressed. We’re even starting to pull some of the policy levers that need to be pulled to make the mental health care system work for everyone.

I think we’ll start to have conversations about our workforce, the lack of diversity in our workforce, and even how we train therapists. It’s an exciting time, and we’re moving in the right direction.

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