Since 1949, Mental Health Awareness Month has been a driving force in addressing the challenges faced by millions of Americans living with mental health conditions. In preparation for Mental Health Awareness Month in May, a Mental Health Summit was hosted in Baldwin Lounge on Apr. 29.
As a part of being a Newman Fellow with Campus Compact, Graduating Winona State student Nicholas Fryer was able to host a panel about mental health policy and how citizens can take action. Each fellow is tasked with creating a project of their own on something they are passionate about. Fryer notes that this is something he and many others are passionate about.
“With that experience [as a Campus Compact Newman Fellow], he was able to engage in a lot of different activities around the public meaning and the public good of higher education. In addition, he met many students from across the country and they were able to network and build consensus around their shared purpose and public passion,” Liberal Arts Dean Dr. Kara Lindaman said introducing Fryer and kicking off the panel. “And for that, I think that was a very powerful experience. I’ve never seen Nicholas so giddy as when he returned back from meeting all his fellow Newman Fellows.”
As the panel begins, Fryer allows the panelists to introduce themselves as well as their role. As well as asking them a series of questions about mental health policy, Fryer questions how those choices on policy affect others. Speakers on the panel were Winona County Commissioner for District 1 Chris Meyer, Executive Director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness for Southeast Minnesota (NAMI SE) Megan Toney, and Winona Advocacy Center Executive Director Crystal Hegge. One conversation that sparked lively conversation was a question Fryer asked about how mental health policy has intersected with their role or organization and what impact they have seen these policies have at the local, state, or federal level.
Meyer begins the talk and highlights that there is a ‘very big discrepancy’ in how people view the commissioners that represent the city and those that represent the rural areas.
“Based on my seven years of going through budget cycles with them, they generally do not believe that using property tax levy for human services, including mental health services, is an appropriate use of tax dollars. They instead believe that religious organizations or non-profits ought to take care of that and so it is an ongoing struggle annually,” Meyer said. “Across the state, if the delivery of those services is different depending on the county that you’re in, and if you had a special needs child, it might actually be worth your while to move to a different county that was wealthier and that did a better job of administering those services and that’s just the reality of the system that we live in, but that is how policy related to mental health actually became pretty important to me.”
NAMI is the nation’s oldest grassroots organization, which means it was started by concerned individuals getting together and expressing concerns about needing more help and support for family members and people living with a mental illness. Echoing points Meyer mentioned, as a Nationally Recognized Non-Profit, Toney adds that NAMI is trying their best, but they can’t do it alone.
“One of the pillars of the National Alliance on Mental Illness’ work, either at the national, state, or the local affiliate levels, is advocacy. We are non-partisan advocates and we work hard across our continuum to recruit like-minded individuals to do strong work in advising and moving forward policy that positively impacts lives of people that live with mental illness and their families,” Toney said. “it’s really important for people interested in doing mental health policy advocacy to be attuned to what’s happening at all levels of our government when it comes to funding, initiatives, and the general kind of consensus around helping individuals in our health and human services world.”
Crystal Hegge, the Executive Director at the Advocacy Center of Winona, works primarily with survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, stalking, and harassment. Hegge highlights that mental health impacts every single one of those survivors at various levels.
“We often see individuals who perhaps our funding based on the policies does not cover…and if those situations do not meet certain criteria…We often will refer to other agencies to work with individuals that may have funding, hopefully, or who have better expertise as advocates,” Hegge said. “We’re advocates for individual survivors and so we’re not therapists. We’re not lawyers, we do not have our direct involvement in to the criminal justice system. We truly advocate for the best outcome for an individual who is experiencing sexual assault, domestic violence, and stalking.”
When asked what were the most pressing gaps in mental health policy they each have seen, Meyer begins by mentioning that Winona Health used to have an inpatient mental health division.
“Insurance will reimburse at about $14,000 a day for you to be in the hospital, but it’s about $2,000 a day if you have a mental health situation. So it is not enough for Winona Health to actually keep that facility afloat and so they closed the program. That’s a thing that’s been happening all over the state,” Meyer said. “I have an article that’s from 2021, and the state did add some beds last year, but in general, the state ranks 50th out of 50. For every 100,000 population, there should be 30 to 40 beds available in mental health facilities. Minnesota has 3.5, so only a fraction of what is really needed.”
And on top of that, there are shortages at facilities where beds are not always available. In some cases without a place to go to, they might have to stay in a hospital emergency room for a mental health crisis for weeks and sometimes longer. If incarcerated, they will remain in jail as there is not a place to go to receive helpful resources. A joint task force with some of the lobbying organizations that Winona County belongs to urge for more facilities in the state of Minnesota.
“We hear some really tragic stories, honestly, of people sitting in jails and sitting in emergency rooms.There’s some wonderful people doing amazing physical health care in emergency rooms. Emergency rooms are not built for people that are in a mental health crisis and I can tell you from personal experience, it’s one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve seen is to watch someone in acute psychosis sit in an ER room and for weeks and weeks on end,” Toney said. “And that’s actually a best-case scenario for some of our folks because at least they’re safe and they’re physically cared for.”
Current data suggests that, 67 to 76,000 Minnesotans are going to lose their coverage if the current cuts at the proposed levels are going through because of work requirements. Toney notes that one in three people in Minnesota living with a mental illness are using Medicaid right now.
“When we start talking about how important is this, that’s an estimated 6.5 million individuals across the United States that are living in rural communities. And we know that the disparities are significant,” Hegge said. “In fact, the most recent data we have around suicide prevention is that suicide is almost twice as prevalent in our rural communities as it is in our metropolitan counterparts.”
The conversation on how to provide for rural communities is still ongoing. The reason that it’s ongoing is because rural communities are unique in what they have and what they need so there’s not really a one size fits all solution to how do we address these disparities. Heggie notes there are some things that work well for smaller communities like collaborative care models. She highlights how Gundersen is launching a program where they’re going into rural communities and training nurses at rural facilities to be able to do telehealth with a certified SANE.
“One of the things that we found that is a barrier to our survivors receiving health care in the rural communities is lack of infrastructure around internet…It has improved a lot just in the last six months. However, expanding telehealth, Gundersen is doing some really amazing things around sexual assault nurse examinations and having trained providers in rural communities who can then perform a forensic exam with a trained SANE nurse,” Hegge said. “That brings incredible access in ways that we have not seen before. It is still rolling out throughout Minnesota. They’re working on it, writing grants, and I’m really excited about it because that’s one of the things that we talk about is access.”
As a community-based agency, a requirement of the Advocacy Center of Winona and community-based domestic violence and sexual assault agencies is that they provide all their services, support groups, and over all assistance ar no cost. Hegge notes having this service for free breaks down the barrier to reaching resources.
“If you think that $5 doesn’t matter to your favorite nonprofit, you are so wrong… I really encourage you to do the walks, the fundraisers- get out and participate. As a community member, absolutely, your policy and legislative initiatives are important, but your membership in things is important and that’s something that really can’t be understated,” Toney said. “Contribute, whether that’s with your voice, whether that’s with your $5, whether that’s with your participation at an event, or whether that’s your membership in that organization.”
As they wrapped up the panel Fryer announced that there is an opportunity students and committee members can take part in. On May 1 in Minne 364, Fryer invited attendees to join him for a mental health care kit night. The purpose of this event is to create mental health care kits with resources that can be provided to rural communities. After creating the kits they will be delivered to rural mental health centers for Mental Health Awareness Month which has been celebrated in month of May since 1949.
