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Why Taraji P. Henson Values Mental Health Awareness

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Taraji P. Henson brings her mental health mission home to Prince George’s County.

Taraji P. Henson didn’t just phone this one in from Hollywood. In a broadcast by local station WUSA9, the Oxon Hill High School graduate sat down with Prince George’s County leaders and residents to talk directly about the mental health struggles facing young people in her home community. It’s advocacy she’s been building for years, rooted in a foundation named for her own father.

• Henson spoke with WUSA9 and Prince George’s County leaders about mental health challenges affecting local youth.
• She launched the Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation in 2018 with longtime friend Tracie Jade Jenkins, named after her father, a Vietnam War veteran who struggled with untreated mental illness after his service.
• The foundation’s work centers on culturally competent therapy referrals and raising awareness in underserved schools and communities, particularly for African American and minority youth.

A Homecoming With a Purpose

Henson grew up in the D.C. area and walked the halls of Oxon Hill High School before her career took off, which is part of why the WUSA9 appearance carries extra weight. This wasn’t a press stop tied to a movie release — it was a working conversation with the county leaders and residents who actually run the schools and programs Henson wants to reach. The segment framed her celebrity platform as a resource local officials are now leaning on to push youth wellness funding and support forward.

That local angle matters because Henson’s foundation has consistently targeted communities that look like the one she came from. According to the Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation, the organization focuses on making therapy referrals culturally competent and creating pathways for young people of color to talk about mental well-being without shame attached to it.

The Foundation Named for Her Father

The Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation isn’t a vanity project — it’s named directly after her late father, a Vietnam War veteran who came home carrying trauma and mental illness that went untreated for the rest of his life. Henson and Tracie Jade Jenkins built the nonprofit in 2018 specifically to close that gap for other families, especially in Black communities where seeking a therapist still carries stigma.

Seeking help should not carry shame, Henson has said, pointing directly to her own struggles with depression and anxiety.

She’s been open that this isn’t theoretical for her. Henson has talked publicly about her own battles with depression and anxiety, using her platform the way other public figures use theirs to push causes they’ve lived through — see Selma Blair Never Stopped Fighting for another example of a celebrity turning a personal health fight into public advocacy.

Reaching Kids Who Don’t Have Access

The core problem the foundation is built to solve is access. Underserved schools and communities often don’t have counselors trained to handle culturally specific stressors, and Henson’s foundation is trying to build that bridge with referrals and outreach rather than just awareness campaigns. It’s the kind of on-the-ground work that pairs with broader conversations happening in mental health circles about what actually drives depression and anxiety in the first place — the kind explored in This could be why you’re depressed or anxious | Johann Hari.

Henson’s message to Prince George’s County residents leaned on the same theme she’s repeated in interviews for years: mental health struggles don’t discriminate by zip code, income, or fame, and treating them like a private failure only keeps people from getting care that’s already hard enough to find.

What happens next in the county is the real test — whether the leaders who sat with Henson on WUSA9 turn that conversation into actual funding for school counselors and referral programs, or whether it stays a one-off segment. Henson’s foundation has kept pushing wellness initiatives in the two years since its 2018 launch, and Prince George’s County is now one of the communities it’s leaning on directly.