Yolo Akili Robinson is an award winning writer, healing justice worker, yogi and the founder and executive director of BEAM (The Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective). BEAM is a national training, movement building and grant making organization dedicated to the healing, wellness and liberation of Black and marginalized communities. Yolo has worked primarily in three areas: Batterers intervention/family counseling with Black men and boys, HIV/AIDS, and healing justice/wellness work. In 2018, Yolo was awarded the prestigious Robert Wood Johnson Foundation “Health Equity Award” for his work. He was also featured at the 2020 BET Awards for an “Empowerful spotlight,” highlighting his work facilitating the vision of BEAM. His writings and work have appeared on Shondaland, GQ, Women’s Health, USA Today, Vice, B.E.T, Huffington Post, Cassius, Ebony, Everyday Feminisms and much more.

Additional Context on Racial Justice Expertise. As the Executive Director and co-founder of BEAM, the Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective. My job is to facilitate, build and manage our container as we hold healing justice, wellness and joy for Black communities. For me this means supporting the cultivation of economic, emotional and funding resources for BEAM and our landscape of community partners. It means managing and building an institution that is as healing centered as possible, through pay equity, work comfort, and access. It means working with my team to refine and uplift our communities’ healing practices’ while also developing tools that encourage our communities to expand our understanding of what healing is. It means challenging the mental health industrial complex and creators of the DSM to grow beyond colonial and ableist thinking. It means defunding the police and funding the community. It means listening.

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