Mental Illness Awareness Week

The Policy Pub wishes to share with our patrons Mental Illness Awareness Week sponsored by the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration. Mental and behavioral health concerns are growing in awareness across the country. MIAW’s aim is to “help educate all Americans on the needs of individuals with mental illness—including serious mental illness—and their families.”

According to SAMHSA, of the approximately 10 million adults with a serious mental illness, less than one-half of those individuals will receive the services and care they need. Social stigmas continue to be a significant barrier in this regard. As part of its week long effort to continue bringing awareness and education combating stigmatization SAMHSA recommends:

• supporting individuals with mental illness by helping them understand they are not alone;
• becoming educated on ways to prevent mental illness, particularly by proactively screening and addressing potential issues during childhood;
• building greater awareness that effective treatments of mental and behavioral health disorders are available; and
• celebrating that very often those treatments make a tremendous difference in the quality of life of the individual: People do recover.

The SAMHSA website is a fantastic resource on a wide variety of knowledge and information on mental and behavioral health issues and concerns – from advocacy to education to emergency assistance. I encourage you to take a moment to become familiar with what is available there and share with others who might benefit from knowing where to turn – whether because they are seeking to help a loved one, someone they’ve never met, or themselves.

Cheers,
  ~ Sparky