Posted on April 13, 2021
Forbes
As America’s mental health crisis spirals and pounds particularly hard on Black and BIPOC communities, and members of Gen Z, more than 200 businesses and nonprofits are uniting for the inaugural Mental Health Action Day on Thursday, May 20. Their emphasis is on the word action. Brianna Cayo Cotter, SVP at MTV Entertainment Group, says collaborations among partners are already under way. AARP is working to elevate action around the mental health struggles caregivers face. YouTube is teaming with the National Alliance on Mental Illness to provide training to people who create content on their platform. Many of the larger corporate partners are focusing not only on their consumers and audiences, but internally as well.
READ MOREPosted on April 12, 2021
POPSUGAR
Actress, singer, and producer Corinne Foxx (NAMI Ambassador) is a triple threat, and she also lives with an anxiety disorder that she was diagnosed with at age 14. To alleviate her anxieties, Corinne continues to go to therapy, does regular exercise, meditates, goes on walks, socializes with friends, and makes sure to get eight hours of sleep per night. In 2017, Corinne partnered with NAMI to share her journey with anxiety and the tools she's developed over her life to manage her disorder. The response to her story was overwhelming and encouraged Foxx to continue partnering with NAMI to shift the narrative around mental health. "Once that happened, I was like, 'Oh, people are craving this conversation,'" she said. Today, Corinne says her teenage sisters inspire her to see the future in a positive light.
READ MOREPosted on April 8, 2021
Modern Healthcare Podcast
I think one of the things that struck me in doing the report the most was when I spoke with Dr. Ken Duckworth, CMO of NAMI, who said, "It takes eight years to make a social worker. It only took roughly eight months to create this mental healthcare pandemic." So the problem is one that was years in the making. And it's likely going to take that long, if not longer, to solve it.
READ MOREPosted on April 6, 2021
HealthDay
U.S. children commonly wait hours in the emergency room for help with a mental health crisis — a problem that has worsened over time, a new study finds. Experts said the situation likely reflects a longstanding and worsening problem: The U.S. has far too few mental health providers for children. "The demand is crushing the supply," said Dr. Ken Duckworth, CMO of NAMI. Duckworth called the findings important, and said they substantiate the "crisis" the nation faces in its mental health workforce. But the central issue, Duckworth said, is that the professional workforce must be expanded. That includes not only child psychiatrists whose education and training take 12 years, he noted, but also nurse practitioners, social workers and other providers trained in mental health care.
READ MOREPosted on April 2, 2021
CNN
"There is a difference between being informed and getting retraumatized." That's what clinical therapist Paul Bashea Williams tells himself and his clients as they struggle with the distressing images now resurfacing during the Derek Chauvin trial. The proceeding churns up a persistent trauma. The replay of George Floyd's final moments can feel inescapable, leaving many feeling raw, vulnerable and without relief. There are places you can turn for immediate help. The NAMI HelpLine number is included as a resource and links to the NAMI homepage. While the evidence surrounding Floyd's death is distressing for most audiences, it is overwhelming for African Americans. The article offers tips to individualize care during the trial.
READ MOREPosted on March 25, 2021
USA Today
The 21-year-old suspect arrested in the rampage, the second in a week, was almost immediately described by family members as paranoid and antisocial. But researchers and advocates say the rush to cast blame on a mental illness is misplaced. "People are searching for explanations for behavior they don't understand. It's easy to put a label like mental illness on behavior that frankly seems just beyond the pale," said Angela Kimball, national director for advocacy and public policy at NAMI. Police have not yet said what the gunman's motive was, but Metzl said immediate blame on mental illness does not tell the full story of what causes a mass shooting. "Mental illness alone is not a predictor of violence," Kimball said. "If mental illness were a cause, we would be seeing proportionally so many more mass shootings." When people unfairly connect mass shooters with mental illness, it stigmatizes the millions of people living with mental health struggles who are not violent, Kimball said. "When they hear people falsely associate mental illness with a mass shooting, people tend to feel a kind of dread of this being associated with a condition that they may be living with every day of their lives," she said.
READ MOREPosted on March 23, 2021
CBS This Morning
In light of the recent attacks against the Asian American community and the rise in hate crimes around the country, psychiatrist Dr. Sue Varma joins "CBS This Morning" to discuss the toll that hate crimes take on our mental health, how the model minority myth is hurtful, how young people are impacted and give tips for how to protect our mental health and cope with trauma. Gayle King shares the NAMI HelpLine info at the end of the segment.
READ MOREPosted on March 17, 2021
NBCNews4: DC
Angela Kimball, NAMI National Director of Advocacy and Public Policy said these types of response units are becoming more common across the country. The Prince William County Police Department is launching a new program to bridge the gap in crisis management. The police department now has a small team of what they call "co-responders" — three police officers paired up with three clinical mental health professionals.
READ MOREPosted on March 16, 2021
HealthDay
During a recent panel discussion, smoking cessation and addiction experts raised concerns about the uptick in tobacco use and emphasized the urgent need to reverse it. "Researchers noticed this changed also for alcohol and other substances, and have suggested that stress and anxiety that resulted from the pandemic may be factors that are driving up the use of tobacco, alcohol and other substances," said Linda Bailey, CEO of the North American Quitline Consortium (NAQC). Dr. Ken Duckworth, NAMI CMO and a member of the panel, noted there could be a long tail of mental health issues stemming from the pandemic, and Hurley suggested tailoring smoking cessation treatment to individuals. Strategies could include combining medical options and a mix of medications, counseling and support. Insurance coverage for programs to help people quit, as well as counseling and medications, are among keys to helping reduce tobacco use.
READ MOREPosted on March 15, 2021
Medscape
A new survey that assessed the mental health impact of COVID-19 across the globe shows high rates of trauma and clinical mood disorders related to the pandemic. The survey was conducted in eight English-speaking countries and included 49,000 adults. It showed that 57% of respondents experienced some COVID-19-related adversity or trauma. Roughly one quarter showed clinical signs of or were at risk for a mood disorder, and only 40% described themselves as "succeeding or thriving." Nonbinary gender and not getting enough sleep, exercise, or face-to-face socialization also increased the risk for poorer mental well-being. Commenting on the survey results, Ken Duckworth, MD, NAMI CMO, noted that the findings were similar to findings from studies in the U.S., which showed disproportionately higher rates of mental health problems in younger individuals. "The idea that this is an international phenomenon and the broad-stroke finding that younger people are suffering across nations is compelling and important for policymakers to look at," he said. Duckworth noted that although the findings are not "representative" of entire populations in a given country, the report is a "first step in a long journey." Duckworth described the report as "extremely brilliant, creative, and generous, allowing any academician to get access to the data." He sees it "less as a definitive report and more as a directionally informative survey that will yield great fruit over time."
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NAMI HelpLine is available M-F, 10 a.m. – 10 p.m. ET. Call 800-950-6264,
text “helpline” to 62640, or chat online. In a crisis, call or text 988 (24/7).