Welcome to the Guerilla Muse podcast with Resmaa. Today, I will be engaging with Kevin Dedner. He serves as founder and CEO of Washington-D.C.-based Hurdle, which provides culturally intentional teletherapy to eliminate barriers that make it harder for people of color to get mental health care.
Kevin is deeply connected to Hurdle’s mission, having suffered a period of depression where he found the biggest challenge to effective care was finding the right therapist who could truly understand and connect with his struggles as an African American man. His company equips mental health professionals with the skills needed to effectively address issues of race, ethnicity, class, and culture and exists to ensure people can show up whole, operate with joy, and live with power. Kevin recently penned his first book, The Joy of the Disinherited: Essays on Oppression, Trauma and Black Mental Health. Through honest, captivating, and humane stories of his past and eye-opening research into the effects of racism on mental health, Kevin argues in his book that we must knock down the invisible barriers to mental healthcare.
An award-winning public speaker, Kevin has over 20 years of public health experience. He currently serves as an Optum Clinical and Scientific Advisory Council member. In 2021, Kevin was named one of the top 50 in Digital Health by Rock Health. He was also recently named one of 75 Black healthcare leaders to know by Becker’s Hospital Review.
Kevin is a graduate of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and has a Master of Public Health from Benedictine University in Illinois.