Mental health is not talked about among the Korean community. This phone line wants to change that

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Soh Yun Park wants the Korean community to know that she’s listening. Or more importantly, there are nearly 70 volunteer counselors, the majority who speak Korean, who are available to talk with them.

Last year, she founded with her husband a phone line primarily focused on helping the Korean-speaking community during mental health challenges in their lives.

The organization is based in Koreatown, but its reach goes beyond the neigborhood.

“Hearing such heavy stories makes my heart ache,” she said. ”But it’s an honor to be the ears that listen.” 

She and her husband, Sang Kyun Park, founded the Youstar Foundation’s warmline, one step below the type of hotline that’s called during an emergency, in a means to reach the community that is experiencing high rates of suicides and a stigma in asking for help. 

The thrust of the Youstar Foundation’s warmline is to reduce that stigma around mental health and address the generational struggle in seeking support. Whereas most warmlines offer mental health support for diverse groups of people, this warmline offers a free emotional support telephone service for Korean Americans. 

QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) training for suicide prevention, organized by YouStar Foundation.

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Photo Courtesy of Soh Yun Park

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In many ways, Soh Yun Park’s trajectory to mental health advocacy was not a straight line.

She was born and raised in South Korea and finished college before immigrating to the United States to join her family. Her background was a bit different from her current work as she originally majored in engineering, then worked as an accountant after moving to the U.S.

In 2002, Soh Yun Park met her husband who was working as a journalist at the time. In his work, Sang Kyun Park noticed people struggling from difficulties with physical health to battles with mental health. He wanted to do something to help. 

In response, Sang Kyun created a magazine that advertised local community service organizations in hopes that they would reach the people who needed them.

After receiving a call from a mother whose child was diagnosed with leukemia and required a bone marrow transplant, Soh Yun and her husband decided to create the Youstar Foundation. The organization began with a mission to spread awareness about cancer. 

But roughly six years after they started dating, Sang Kyun Park became ill and had a serious health crisis. 

“My husband has bipolar disorder,” Soh Yun Park said. “ That’s when I realized how serious this illness was, but we didn’t fully know how to treat it.”

At the time, she searched for a pyschologist, but the language barrier was a huge hurdle.

“If you can’t communicate, it’s terrifying,” she said.

Despite Sang Kyun’s diagnosis from a young age, he was unable to find proper treatment in Korea. 

“It’s hard to test different doctors when you are already in an emergency state,” Soh Yun Park said. 

After 10 years of combined therapy and medication, she saw her husband improve and the effects that therapy can have on someone in a crisis situation. She wanted to help others do the same. 

That’s when the couple shifted their organization’s mission to helping the Korean community talk about their mental health struggles.

But Soh Yun Park understood the stigma of getting mental health care in the Korean community. 

“They hide it, which prevents them from getting help,” she said “This leaves not just the individual, but the whole family hiding in darkness.”

The warmline was meant to serve as the first step in getting out of the shadows. 

Out of all Asian groups in Los Angeles County, Koreans were found to have the highest rate of suicide, according to the latest available data. 

With recent federal policies cutting funding for mental health resources and mental health becoming a rising concern in Koreatown, Youstar Foundation’s warmline is one way to address the issue.

Park shares her experience in organizing healing seminars for Korean Angelenos.

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Courtesy of Soh Yun Park

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For a city like Los Angeles where more than half of the population are immigrants, the warmline reduces barriers for Korean American immigrants by operating in two languages, Korean and English. 

Cheryl Eskin, licensed marriage and family therapist and senior director of the teen hotline program, Teen Line, said these types of resources often go unnoticed among the people who need them the most.

 “These resources are staffed by kind, compassionate people who are ready to listen and support without judgement,” Eskin said. 

The worry about being judgme keeps many people from asking for the very help they need, she said.

“Cultural and societal factors often come into play with people believing that their problems are not worthy of support or reveal that something is ‘wrong’ with them,” Eskin added.

Park’s work with the Youstar Foundation aims to address this type of barrier. 

The line emphasizes the benefits of having counselors who share the same cultural background as their callers, who can relate to parent behaviors and generational hardships specific to the Korean community. 

YouStar Foundation’s warmline can be reached at 213-221-2813. Visit YouStar Foundation’s website for more info on their resources. Available from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. The foundation hopes to expand the program to 24-hours within the next three years. 

If you or someone else requires mental health support, call the 24/7 LACDMH Help Line at 1-800-854-7771 or call/text 988 to reach the national Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. 

This story was produced under The LA Local’s Youth Journalism Program. To learn more or to get involved, click here.