“You Think You Grown” Dismantling Adultification Documentary and Panel Discussion

Uchechi Chinyere is a communications strategist with work spanning across various sectors to drive development and implementation of multicultural awareness campaigns.

Additionally, she’s a content creator, writer, and has been featured as a thought leader on various panels. Uchechi is an unapologetic voice on every platform, forthright and fearless about blackness and womanhood.

Dr. Nicole “Nikki” Coleman is a licensed psychologist with a diverse set of talents. Her expertise includes being a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant and trainer, writer, podcaster, public speaker, and therapist. She is a Black woman, feminist, social justice advocate, sex-positive advocate, intellectual, mother, scholar, and mentor. When you meet her, you’re likely to find a transparent, witty, irreverent, charming, genuine, and relatable human being.  Dr. Coleman’s many intersecting identities uniquely position her to help others via training, coaching, and therapy. She believes that meaningful relationships are sources of learning about ourselves.

Dr. Coleman received her PhD in Counseling Psychology from the APA-accredited top-ranked program at the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2002. For over 15 years she was a professor of Counseling Psychology with over 7 years as a tenured professor. During that time, Dr. Coleman peer-reviewed published pieces focused on identity and cultural factors impacting young Black adults. Dr. Coleman is the founder and CEO of Dr. Nikki Knows, a Houston-based psychotherapy, sex positive and coaching practice.

Chanel Dupree is an award-winning screenwriter and director based in NYC. Her second film “Next Stop” earned her “Best Female Director”. You can find “Next Stop” on the New York Times rated streaming service NoBudge. Chanel has written in several writers’ rooms, including her web series, including her web series, Black Retail that premiered at the Toronto International Women's Film Festival and won Best Comedy and Best Web Series. A winner of Spec that Scene, a finalist for Women Write Now, finalist of BLACK BOY/GIRL WRITES MEDIA and A fellow of BRIC’s Screenwriters Lab, Chanel’s work can be found on Shadow & Act, HuffPost and African Voices.

Dr. Nina Angela Mercer is a cultural worker and multidisciplinary artist living in Washington, D.C. Her plays include GUTTA BEAUTIFUL(The Warehouse Theatre, The Woolly Mammoth for DC’s Fringe, Abrons Arts Center, Little Carib Theatre); ITAGUA MEJI: A Road & A Prayer (Brecht Forum, Alternate Roots, Rutgers University Newark and New Brunswick, The Nuyorican Poets Café); GYPSY & THE BULLY DOOR(The Warehouse Theatre, the former Dumbo Sky); ELIJAHEEN BECOMES WIND (Anacostia Arts Center); CHARISMA AT THE CROSSROADS (Dorothy Young Arts Center); SPARROW(The Langston Hughes House); and A COMPULSION FOR BREATHING (The Schomburg Center and Target Margin Theater). Nina also joined Urban Bush Women as a collaborating writer and performer for the development of HAINT BLU which premiered for the Junebug Productions season in New Orleans at the André Cailloux Center for Performing Arts and Cultural Justice with subsequent performances at the Hampton House in Miami, Florida with Live Arts Miami; MassMOCA in The Berkshires with Jacob’s Pillow and Williams College; St. Mary’s Church in Harlem, NY; and at locations in Oak Bluffs and Aquinnah with The Yard in Martha’s Vineyard.

Nina’s writing is published in The Killens Review of Arts & Letters; Black Renaissance Noire; Continuum: The Journal of African Diaspora Drama, Theatre, and Performance; A Gathering of the Tribes Magazine Online; Break Beat Poets Vol 2: Black Girl Magic (Haymarket Press); Are You Entertained? Black Popular Culture in the 21st Century (Duke University Press); Performance Research Journal (Taylor and Francis); Represent! New Plays for Multicultural Young People (Bloomsbury Press); and So We Can Know: Writers of Color on Pregnancy, Loss, Abortion, and Birth (Haymarket Press).

Nina has performed with Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative for 2-3-4, 2-3-4; Angela’s Pulse for Paloma McGregor’s Building A Better Fishtrap/From the River’s Mouth; and for her own video poem created in collaboration with director Toshi Sakai, “Invocation for Josè Antonio Aponte,” which toured nationally and internationally with the “Visionary Aponte: Art and Black Freedom” visual art exhibition.

Nina was the recipient of the CUNY-Schomburg Dissertation Fellowship. She is also a former Schomburg Scholar in Residence. She was the recipient of the Institute for Research of the African Diaspora in the Americas Dissertation Fellowship; the Toni Cade Bambara Summer Fellowship; the Center for Humanities Auto-Ethnography and Theater Fellowship; and the Dean K. Harrison Research Fellowship which supported research in Salvador da Bahia.

Nina has taught across disciplines at American University, Howard University, Medgar Evers College, Brooklyn College, Drew University, and for the Beyond Identity Program at City College. She is also co-founder and executive director of Ocean Ana Rising, Inc. (OAR) which is generously funded with grants from the NEA and The Black Seed.

Nina holds a Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance from the Graduate Center at the City University of New York (CUNY). She also holds a Master of Philosophy from The Graduate Center at CUNY, a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing - Fiction from American University, and a Bachelor of Arts in English from Howard University. Nina is the Co-Founder and Creative Executive Director of Ocean Ana Rising, an arts education organization dedicated to co-creating social change through the development of theater and multimedia works alongside vital cultural work and community-centered programming.

Nina is currently the inaugural post-doctoral Community Engagement Fellow at The Woodshed Center for Art, Thought, and Culture at Georgetown University’s Racial Justice Institute.

Nina is a mother to two adult daughters who keep her mindful with an ear for new music and language.

Lauren Christine Mims, PhD is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Psychology at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Prior to joining NYU, she was an Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology at Ball State University. Dr. Mims earned her doctorate in Educational Psychology: Applied Developmental Science at the University of Virginia School of Education. Dr. Mims obtained a B.A. in English and Psychology from the University of Virginia in 2012 and a M.A. in Child Development with a concentration in Clinical Developmental Health from Tufts University in 2014.

Dr. Mims’ mixed-methods program of research uses culturally grounded developmental frameworks to explore how sociocultural stressors impact Black children’s learning and development, with the goal of identifying and amplifying the strengths and assets in children, families, and schools that may buffer the deleterious academic, social, and psychological effects that Black youth experience in response to bias and discrimination. The ultimate goal of her research is to freedom dream (Kelley, 2002) with Black children and their families, and then use that brilliance to guide the development of new research, policies, practices, and narratives.

Dr. Mims was formerly Assistant Director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans during the Obama Administration, where she focused her efforts on student programming, policymaking, strategic planning and management of projects and priorities including, but not limited to, centering youth voice, supporting federal interagency relationships, the development of research-based publications and handbooks for students, managing the Initiative social media accounts, and engaging with stakeholders through multi-media platforms. She was a member of the White House Council on Women and Girls, the U.S. Department of Education Policy Committee, the U.S. Department of Education Socioeconomic Diversity Working Group, as well as a member of First Lady Michelle Obama's Reach Higher Working Group.

Frandelia Moore, PsyD is a Clinical Assistant Professor and Program Director in the Department of Applied Psychology Masters of Counseling residential and online programs at New York University (NYU). She teaches courses such as: Cross-Cultural Counseling, Social Justice Practice for Counselors and Group Dynamics: Theory and Practice. Dr. Moore uses a multicultural and social justice lens in all of her courses to discuss the application of theory, treatment and analysis. She emphasizes how students can take action as counselors in training for themselves, their clients and communities. Before coming to NYU, Dr. Moore worked in child and adolescent mental health services for 20 years. Dr. Moore has extensive training and education as a psychologist, lecturer, and administrator that have provided her with significant experience within trauma-focused systems and historically marginalized communities of color. Her clinical work has focused on the clinical assessment and processing of clients’ trauma histories and assistance in navigating complicated institutional systems. Many of her clients struggled with symptomatology in the areas of trauma, depression, anxiety, adjustment and psychosis, while simultaneously juggling complex issues such as removal from the home, domestic and community violence, the justice system, school to prison pipeline, homophobia, and institutionalized racism. Dr. Moore’s research interests include mixed race identity, intersectionality in academia and anti-oppressive supervision for BI+POC students in counseling programs.

Dr. La Shawn M. Paul, DSW, LCSW-R is the founder and lead clinician of Social Work Diva, an online provider of therapy, clinical supervision, and mental health consulting, the President of Redefine Strong Inc., a registered 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization that aims to redefine what it means to be a Strong Black Woman and mission is to eliminate barriers in access and awareness that prevent Black Women from seeking professional mental health treatment, and the founder of The Black Women’s Mental Health Conference. She is a New York State licensed clinical social worker and recognized by the National Association of Social Workers as an accredited social worker. Dr. Paul has a B.A. in Social Work and Political Science from Herbert H. Lehman College (City University of New York) and her M.S. from Columbia University in Social Work with a clinical specialization in School-Based, School-Linked Services. Her Doctorate in Social Work is from the University of Southern California with a focus on social innovation and change.

In her senior year of high school, La Shawn lost a friend to suicide. At that moment, she decided to pursue Social Work so that she could help women and girls of all ages see their value and strength in times of turmoil and uncertainty. As a mother of three boys, wife, and clinician, she understands the various challenges that modern women face as they juggle a multitude of roles and expectations, while simultaneously attempting to excel as their authentic selves in the face of racism, sexism, and oppressive systems. She is a firm believer that political advocacy is necessary to see true systemic change in mental health. She is a firm believer that self-care is essential to holistic wellness and motivates her clients to practice self-care routinely to achieve work-life balance, while simultaneously working towards shifting policies and social paradigms that impact their care. In 2019, she coined the phrase 'Redefine Strong' as a call to action to redefine strength and what it means to be a Strong Black Woman as a way to counteract the Strong Black Woman Schema that acts a cultural, intergenerational hurdle to professional mental health treatment for Black Women and Black Girls.

In addition, Dr. Paul has provided consulting for an array of public and private healthcare and academic institutions in the NYC metropolitan area and remote locations throughout the United States. La Shawn currently holds multiple part-time faculty appointments. She is an Ambassador for the National Association on Mental Illness-NYC Metro Chapter, NAMI-NYS Multicultural Committee member and Forbes for the Culture member, where she advocates for improved funding and services for people living with mental illness and their families. Through Social Work Diva and Redefine Strong Inc., she centers her mental health advocacy on eliminating mental health disparities in Black Women’s mental health. She also works with elected officials and other mental health stakeholders to shape and create mental health policies and initiatives to eliminate mental illness stigma and encourage support for mental health funding, particularly within communities of color.

Throughout her academic and professional career, La Shawn has received a multitude of awards and honors including proclamations from the NYS Assembly, NYS Senate and Brooklyn Borough President and the Emerging a Leadership Award from the National Association of Social Workers- NYC Chapter. Her work in mental health has landed her on the HuffPost's list of "10 Black Female Therapists to Know" and she has been featured on various media outlets including Buzzfeed, Bustle, Fox5, Hot97, and USA Today. La Shawn is a catalyst of change and Social Work Diva and Redefine Strong is her vision realized. To find out more about Dr. Paul’s work and join her efforts, visit SocialWorkDiva.com and RedefineStrongInc.org

New York University Silver School of Social Work is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers {#SW-0012}.

New York University Silver School of Social Work is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed mental health counselors {#MHC-0083}.

For Mental Health Practitioners: Please check with your state, if you are not licensed in New York, to determine if these credits will be accepted for licensing renewal.

NYU Silver School of Social Work is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed marriage and family therapists #MFT-0126.

NYU Silver School of Social Work is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychoanalysts #P-0066.