Every news site, radio station, social media page, and headline is talking about the Coronavirus. For so many people, the Coronavirus has a much greater toll than just being bored or missing our friends. Mental illnesses, such as depression and anxiety are spreading as rapidly as the disease itself, and many people are finding themselves unprepared. However, 1 in 5 American adults suffer from a mental illness all the time, not just during a pandemic, so why are we only talking about it now?
The Mental Health Association of the Southern Tier, or M-HAST, has made it a point not to overlook those facing mental health issues within the greater Binghamton area, especially not now, when many need their support the most. M-HAST operates with the mission statement of helping improve individuals' lives and community education through a holistic approach of advocacy, crisis management, and long term support for both children and adults. While they offer many important services that help anyone in need with immediate relief, help during a crisis, or community education, I believe that one of their most pertinent services for this crucial time is their Compeer Program. This program encourages individuals with mental illnesses to build self confidence, self reliance, and healthy relationships by providing them with regular social contact and involving them in one-to-one friendships. These skills and forever friendships boost confidence and communication abilities, helping to ensure long-term success and achievement. I think now, more than ever, Americans are seeing the importance of friendships and how hard isolation is, and however difficult this time is for a neurotypical individual, it is even more trying for someone with a preexisting mental health issue.
Despite being a widespread issue, mental health often gets cut out of program support and is heavily underfunded due to the lack of definable diagnoses and the stigma surrounding mental health conditions. For Broome County, mental health was specifically marked as an area of need in the Community Health Needs Assessment, as many residents lack mental health support, often funneling into additional issues, most predominantly substance abuse. The lack of attention to mental health has always been detrimental, yet as this pandemic grows and as feelings of isolation and anxiety mount, it is more important than ever not to lose sight of mental health and to support and utilize the organizations that are there to help, like M-HAST.
Allison Underhill
The Mental Health Association of the Southern Tier, or M-HAST, has made it a point not to overlook those facing mental health issues within the greater Binghamton area, especially not now, when many need their support the most. M-HAST operates with the mission statement of helping improve individuals' lives and community education through a holistic approach of advocacy, crisis management, and long term support for both children and adults. While they offer many important services that help anyone in need with immediate relief, help during a crisis, or community education, I believe that one of their most pertinent services for this crucial time is their Compeer Program. This program encourages individuals with mental illnesses to build self confidence, self reliance, and healthy relationships by providing them with regular social contact and involving them in one-to-one friendships. These skills and forever friendships boost confidence and communication abilities, helping to ensure long-term success and achievement. I think now, more than ever, Americans are seeing the importance of friendships and how hard isolation is, and however difficult this time is for a neurotypical individual, it is even more trying for someone with a preexisting mental health issue.
Despite being a widespread issue, mental health often gets cut out of program support and is heavily underfunded due to the lack of definable diagnoses and the stigma surrounding mental health conditions. For Broome County, mental health was specifically marked as an area of need in the Community Health Needs Assessment, as many residents lack mental health support, often funneling into additional issues, most predominantly substance abuse. The lack of attention to mental health has always been detrimental, yet as this pandemic grows and as feelings of isolation and anxiety mount, it is more important than ever not to lose sight of mental health and to support and utilize the organizations that are there to help, like M-HAST.
Allison Underhill
Hi Allison!
ReplyDeleteYour charity pitch was awesome and I think the organization you presented on has a lot to offer. In particular, I also agree with you that the Compeer program seems like an incredibly useful impact for the public form the organization. I think by building on skills we already have can greatly improve someone’s well-being. Now that people are alone, I agree that is more difficult for them to find ways to improve their mental health being that they do not have their usual resources to improve their well-being. However, I do think that an organization like this can greatly help by extending its helping arms further to those who may need it more than others.
When discussing the implementation of a program to build on skills to help people improve their mental health, I recently did a presentation on the build and broaden positive emotion theory by Barbara L. Fredrickson. Essentially, she focuses on gratitude, however her theory also applies to other skills people can build upon. She states that by continually building on your positive emotions, you learn ways to continue using them the next time. For example, if you want to improve your positive emotion of happiness, then you must do actions that would help you enhance that skill. By consciously doing more happy actions in your daily life, it builds on your repertoire of skills that allow you to function in an upward spiral of positive emotions. (here is the link to another article related to the one I read if anyone is interesting in reading it/learning more about building on your positive emotions!: https://positivepsychology.com/broaden-build-theory/)
Your mentioning of the Compeer program sparked a reminder for me about this recent project I did. I strongly agree that having an implementation of a program to help people build on positive emotions will allow them to gain the skills needed to help themselves in times like these. Even if the program is not directly reaching out to people, I think by providing the resource in an open manner so that people could access it if need be, would be a wonderful implementation into our society.
Overall, I thought your Pitch and post were eye opening.
Thank you!
Elly