Where Every Person is Fully Visible and Connected
We begin our fiscal year on September 1, which makes it the perfect time to reflect on our Just Cause: We are creating a community where every person is fully visible and connected.
We have so much to celebrate in that regard. We know we are reducing depression, anxiety, loneliness, and feelings of stigma. We know we are increasing social connectedness. We know we are creating a $4 return on every $1 invested.
We are also celebrating the successful opening of the Vous Cafe and the near completion of our Building Momentum capital campaign. We are saving lives by giving people who have found us purpose, meaning, and hope.
But what about those who haven't found us yet? Who are not quite visible and, therefore, remain unconnected? They include complete strangers and they probably also include people we know who are in our midst right now.
I have been trying to figure out how best to reach young adults for years now. I admit a selfish motive: trying to find and build community for my own son Jackson, who was very isolated and was regularly struggling to find hope and strength.
Jackson gave up that struggle on August 16, 2024, at just 32 years old.
It wasn't just isolation that he struggled with. He had a terminal illness and was in almost constant pain. The severity of that pain further restricted him from engaging with others. He felt unable to get out to meet people, unable to find or build a community of support.
The cycle of physical and emotional pain continued, each amplifying the other. Until it completely consumed and overwhelmed him.
It grieves me that I, one who focuses so much of my life energy on healing and the need to bring people into community, was unable to save my own son. And so my challenge to reach young adults has increased and expanded. This must be a focus in the coming years.
Right now a dedicated group of leaders in Ottawa County is analyzing the Community Heath Needs Assessment data and creating a Community Health Improvement Plan. There are three subgroups, one of which is focused on the mental health crisis of this community. I sit on that subgroup.
As we try to figure out how to reach more people with mental health services, we often come up against the reality that there just are not enough clinical resources to fill the need. This is not unique to our county or even our country. In fact, in developing countries, close to 90 percent of mental illness goes untreated simply because psychiatrists are in such short supply. In his TED Talk, Psychiatrist Vikram Patel suggests that we can bring better mental health care to low-resource communities by teaching ordinary people to deliver basic psychiatric services.
I think he's right. I think we need to work harder to develop peer supports at different age ranges for people struggling with mental illness. Peers can help deliver these services at much lower cost and with at least two important additional benefits: 1) they can help people recognize themselves in others and in doing so 2) they can help eliminate the stigma of the struggle with mental health, the primarily reason people don't seek help and so often find themselves without community.
Will you join me in this work? Will you help the Momentum Center to more fully live out its mission? If so, let me know. My email address is just below.
If we are going to help mitigate the mental health crisis in which we find ourselves, we are going to have to do more than talk about it. We are going to have to recognize our capacity as ordinary human beings to care for each other. Only then will this be a community where every person is fully visible and connected.
Namaste,
Barbara Lee VanHorssen
Experi-Mentor
barbara@momentumcentergh.org
