1. health and fitness

Webinar: Creating Community Solutions: How to Connect to the National Discussion on Mental Health
December 3, 2013
Moderator:
Wendie Veloz, Public Health Advisor, Center for Mental Health Services, Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Services Administration
Host:
Michelle Duhart-Tonge, TTA Network Provider Lead, OJJDP National Training and Technical Assistance
Center
Presenters:
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer, Executive Director, National Institute for Civil Discourse and founder of
AmericaSpeaks
Elaine Abelaye-Mateo, Consultant, Everyday Impact Consulting
Tom Campbell, Senior Associate, AmericaSpeaks
Welcome from OJJDP
Stephanie Rapp: Welcome, everyone. I am Stephanie Rapp from the Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention. I want to thank you for joining our discussion today on how communities can
connect with the National Dialogue on Mental Health. OJJDP supports the integration and collaboration
of mental health in juvenile justice services to better serve our youth. You will be hearing from dynamic
speakers in the field who have been doing this work. I will now turn it over to my colleague from
SAMHSA, Wendie Veloz, to introduce our panelists and this initiative.
Welcome from SAMHSA
Wendie Veloz: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to today’s Webinar, Creating Community
Solutions: How to Connect to the National Discussion on Mental Health. My name is Wendie Veloz and I
am with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, also known as SAMHSA. We
are very excited to share information about the National Dialogue on Mental Health that we launched
and have maintained with the help of many partners, including today’s presenters.
Wendie Veloz: As the first year anniversary of the Sandy Hook tragedy is upon us, we are reminded that
all too often we hear in the news reports about these tragic events and why mental health is important
to every person in every community. We know that around one in five young people has mental,
emotional, or behavioral disorders at any given time. We know that treating these disorders is
expensive, with an estimated $247 billion in annual cost. We know that this financial impact is felt in
multiple sectors, including education, justice, health care, and welfare. We know that above and beyond
the fiscal impact, these disorders affect not only the individuals, but their families and communities as
well. Mental health professionals are an essential partner at the table with juvenile justice and
education, so SAMHSA is very happy to present this Webinar in partnership with OJJDP.
Wendie Veloz: Today’s panelists represent several of our partners who are working together to change
the way the Nation talks about mental health issues. Our panelists are: Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer,
Executive Director of the National Institute for Civil Discourse and founder of AmericaSpeaks; Elaine
Abelaye-Mateo, consultant from Everyday Impact Consulting; and Tom Campbell, a senior associate with
AmericaSpeaks.
Wendie Veloz: Now, let us hear from OJJDP National Training and Technical Assistance Center, Michelle
Duhart-Tonge.
Adobe Platform Information
Michelle Duhart-Tonge: Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks so much for joining us today. As your
host, I would like to take just a few minutes to discuss a few features of Adobe Connect which will help
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presentation panel, please access the documents which are available now in the Handouts pod of the
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Michelle Duhart-Tonge: There will be several opportunities for Q & A throughout the presentation. So
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Michelle Duhart-Tonge: Finally, at the conclusion of today’s Webinar you will be provided with a link to
take a 5-minute online survey about today’s presentation. We appreciate your feedback regarding this
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Webinars on OJJDP’s Online University
Michelle Duhart-Tonge: Finally, this event will be archived in OJJDP’s Training Center at www.nttac.org
in approximately 10 business days. Again, thank you for joining us today. Ms. Veloz?
Creating Community Solutions: How to Connect to the National Discussion on Mental Health
Webinar Objectives
Wendie Veloz: This is Wendie Veloz from the Center for Mental Health Services and SAMHSA. My
portfolio includes serving as the staff lead on the National Dialogue on Mental Health. Today we will
discuss more about how this national discussion on mental health got started and how you can leverage
your existing partnerships to address the mental health needs presented in your community. We hope
that through this Webinar, more partners representing juvenile justice and education will join us in
creating opportunities to discuss mental health issues openly. We will also identify resources that can
help you take next steps using lessons learned from communities leading this charge across the Nation.
National Conference on Mental Health: Bringing Mental Health Out of the Shadows
Wendie Veloz: First let us talk about the National Dialogue on Mental Health and how it got started.
Following the tragedies in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012, President Obama called for a
national discussion about mental health issues, with a particular focus on youth.
Wendie Veloz: On June 3, 2013, the White House held the National Conference on Mental Health,
bringing together Cabinet level officials, members of Congress, mental health professionals, advocates,
celebrities, young adult leaders and, of course, people with lived experience. This conference is the first
mental health conference hosted by the White House since 1999, and it focused on actions we can all
take together to increase the understanding and awareness about mental health.
Wendie Veloz: Well before the National Conference, SAMHSA and other federal agencies reached out to
allies who we knew could help get the conversation started. Our next presenter, Dr. Carolyn
Lukensmeyer, will talk more about the partnerships that have been forged and how they began. On
behalf of SAMHSA, I would like to briefly acknowledge all of the partner organizations who have helped
us come as far as we have to share these accomplishments with you in such a short amount of time.
Their efforts are amazing and inspire us all to continue to work hard to keep this ongoing conversation
alive.
Wendie Veloz: Although we had few monetary resources to offer to support the National Dialogue on
Mental Health, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) committed to developing other
types of resources to help individuals, communities, and organizations to discuss mental health issues
openly. The Department launched a new Website called www.mentalhealth.gov with resources focused
on how to talk about mental health problems and how to access help.
Toolkit for Community Conversations About Mental Health
Wendie Veloz: In July, SAMHSA released the Toolkit for Community Conversations About Mental Health,
which includes an information brief, a discussion guide, and a planning guide. The Toolkit was developed
to help individuals, communities, and organizations discuss mental health issues using a structured
format and with a common set of facts and information. However, through orders for the Toolkit, we
have learned these materials are also being used for wider audiences, including state and county
planning efforts, and in a variety of settings for training and to build staff competency. These guides are
available for download in the Handouts pod of the Webinar dashboard. They can also be downloaded on
the SAMHSA Website listed on this slide.
Wendie Veloz: Very soon we will release the entire Toolkit adapted in Spanish, along with an infographic
called “Mental Health in My Community.” The infographic will be available in various sizes to share on
social media, to print, and as a printed high-resolution poster to share at events. All of these materials
can also be ordered in bulk quantity as nicely printed booklets from the SAMHSA store.
Wendie Veloz: We have also increased our social media engagement and coordination with our partners
to share information about mental health online. You can follow www.mentalhealth.gov,
www.samhsa.gov, and Creating Community Solutions online. You can share your work through using the
hashtag we have developed for the National Dialogue on Mental Health, #mentalhealthmatters, all one
word.
Wendie Veloz: As a reminder, please take a look at the Handouts pod where we have uploaded a
number of other resources that you can explore throughout the Webinar. And now I will turn it over to
our first presenter, Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer, Executive Director of the National Institute for Civil
Discourse.
Creating Community Solutions (CCS)
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: Thank you very much, Wendie. I am delighted to be with you all today. The
seven organizations that are running Creating Community Solutions, the National Institute for Civil
Discourse, AmericaSpeaks, Everyday Democracy, the National Issues Forum, the Kettering Foundation,
the Deliberative Democracy Consortium, and the National Coalition of Deliberation and Dialogue, said
an immediate yes when Stephanie asked us to join this call because we know how closely linked issues
of juvenile justice and issues of mental health among young people are. Many of the communities we
have been working in tell us that far too many of their young people are now in juvenile holding,
whether it turns out to be a jail or a training program, because mainly of a mental health issue. So we
know how important this link is and we hope that by our time with you today, that you will see from the
– I think we have almost all states represented on this call – that you may see a way to add a community
conversation to a program that you are already doing in your community.
Goals
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: There are two goals to what Creating Community Solutions is doing. In every
community we have worked, we continue to hear the misperceptions and the mythologies about mental
health and, frankly, what people say is a stigma is the major reason that young people often do not
come forward to self-identify and actually get help early. So we are doing a lot of education to break
down the misperceptions and to educate about what it means to really support young people and their
families in recovery and to have a healthier community.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: The second goal, equally as important as the first, is it is not enough to talk
about this issue in the world we are living in today. We have to figure out ways to take meaningful
action. So every community, when you go to the Creating Community Solutions Website, every
community that is participating you will see is identifying what a collective group of people in that
community, often aided by organizations, will come forward and say, “This is the set of actions we are
going to take to improve this situation for our young people.”
Types of Community Conversations
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: When we conceived of this strategy with SAMHSA and HHS, there were three
parts to it, one of which is online dialogues which I am not going to talk about at all today, but you can
find it on our Website. But critically we identified what we called 10 Lead Cities, one of each in the major
regions that match HHS and SAMHSA’s administrative and service structure across the country. The
criteria to be a Lead City is the Mayor in that community had to convene the public to come together.
They created a diverse organizing team that was led either by AmericaSpeaks or Everyday Democracy or
the National Issues Forum. The agreement was it would be large scale, at least 300, sometimes 400
people. And here is the tough part, and all you who work in communities will know how hard this is to
do. The agreement was that those 300 to 400 people would be demographically representative of the
population of that metropolitan area, with an agreement to over-sample for young people. Hats off to
Washington, D.C., and Sacramento who you will hear from later. In both of those cities, a full 33 percent
of the 400 people who were in the room were between the ages of 14 and 24. And I know all of you on
this Webinar know what it takes to pull that off. Every single one of the Lead Cities created a steering
committee of organizations, and you are going to hear detail about this from Sacramento about how to
turn the public’s priorities into an action plan for a commitment to implementation over the next 2 to 5
years.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: Equally important to this strategy is what an academic would call Distributed
Conversations. The idea here was everybody in the United States should be able to do this. They should
be able to download the materials that SAMHSA created. They should be able to get coaching from the
team that works with CCS, and all that has to happen is they go on the Website, they put a pin in a map
of the United States. Let us say I am in El Paso, Texas, or I am in Milo, Maine. I put a pin in. Our
community organizer, Sue McCormack, gives you a call and helps you set up. Whether you want to do
10 people in a Rotary Club, or you want to do 100 people in a high school, or for the people on this call,
you want to add just an hour to a program you already have designed and organized to ask a couple of
critical questions about mental health that could be outcomes that get added to CCS, which SAMHSA
and HHS are paying attention to the themes that come from communities all over the country.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: So our biggest hope out of our time with you today is that you will find a way
that is very easy for you. We have put all the infrastructure in to make it easy. You have created the
context in your own community in which we might make the connection. If we put those two things
together, you are a step forward in terms of linking mental health to juvenile justice, we are a step
forward in having a larger number of communities involved and a larger sample of outcomes for
SAMHSA’s policy and resource work in the future.
Community Conversation Questions
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: We have organized all of these conversations around four questions, and
again, let us say you add 1 hour to some program you are doing. Our request would be you just take one
of these questions, or maybe two at the most, and have a dialogue about that, which you could then tell
us the outcomes. Here are the four questions.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: Because of how sensitive people are about these issues, we believe it is
important to talk about what does mental health mean to me, and what is the ethos in our community
about mental health? So that is where we usually start our conversation.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: Next, we look at what are the key factors and challenges that influence
mental health in our community? I know you will hear more about this from Sacramento. Sacramento
County has one of the most diverse populations in the whole United States. Very, very broad
immigration from many different parts of the world. So one of their biggest challenges, they have got
some great services, but how do the newcomers from Somalia or Sudan even know how to get access to
those services?
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: A critical question to start to move to action. What can we do to support the
mental health needs in our community, particularly of our youth?
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: And finally, we talk about what action steps could we take to improve the
status of young people’s health?
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: I am going to hand this back to Wendie who is actually going to ask a poll
question that will give us some sense of the interest you have in this kind of work.
Poll Question #1
Wendie Veloz: Okay, thank you, Carolyn, for giving us a brief update about what is going on with
Creating Community Solutions. We are going to take our first poll question. The first poll question is:
How important is the issue of mental health to your work and your program? Is it 1) extremely
important, 2) very important, 3) somewhat important, or 4) not important at all? So we will take just a
second to look at everyone’s responses and gauge a little bit about where everyone is sitting.
Wendie Veloz: It looks like extremely important seems to be the most popular, followed by very
important. So the topic seems to be very relevant for our audience and we are very glad you joined us
for this Webinar, given that mental health is very crucial to what you seem to be doing. So we have
about 64 percent that said it is extremely important, and about 27 percent said very important. So we
are glad to hear that and we hope you will learn about a lot of resources during this Webinar.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: Okay, thanks, Wendie.
Overview of Activity: Lead Cities
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: I am going to do a bit more detail about the Lead Cities which, again, you can
go onto the Website www.creatingcommunitysolutions.org and look for as much detail as you want. But
the public engagement part has now been completed in Sacramento, California, Albuquerque, New
Mexico, the District of Columbia, and the metropolitan area of Kansas City covering both Missouri and
Kansas.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: Birmingham, Alabama, the Mayor and his team made a decision to extend
these discussions over a longer period of time. So about half of the dialogues will be done by the end of
this year and about half of them will be done in the first 3 months of next year.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: Now, I realize I did not update this slide, but Columbus, Ohio, is now actually
operating as a Lead City. Mayor Coleman has signed on. They have already done significant work in the
county as a whole and in neighborhoods. I saw that some of you are from Ohio through the registration.
If you would like to get involved in the ongoing work now in Columbus, Ohio, the person to contact is
Fran Frazier. Her e-mail address is [email protected]. And, again, you can click on Columbus,
Ohio, on the map and it will also give you the link to Fran or the link to NAMI, the National Association
for the Mentally Ill.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: The other three states that will end up being Lead Cities, we believe, and I am
going to spend a minute or two about Colorado because we have a very unique opportunity in Colorado.
We have developed a strong partnership with the public television station and with the NBC affiliate in
Denver, Colorado, who have committed to producing an hour-long television show to describe the work
that is being done in a variety of communities around Colorado. We know for sure that Colorado
Springs, Fort Collins, Pueblo, Denver, and I think I am missing – oh, Grand Junction – are definitely going
to hold dialogues. And here, again, you can do whatever size you want, you can link it to a juvenile
justice program. But if you would like to get engaged in this, we would love to have you. The best way to
do that is to contact Sue McCormack who is our community organizer and who is creating the
connections in Colorado.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: In the Northwest, we do think there will end up being a pretty significant
event in the State of Washington, probably Seattle. Later in this call, you will be hearing from Tom
Campbell and the work that he did in Sacramento for AmericaSpeaks. So if you are in Washington and
you would really like to be early on involved, just shoot Tom an e-mail at [email protected].
Overview of Activity: Distributed Conversations
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: Now I want to talk with you about how excited we are about how Americans
all over this country – sometimes it is an individual, sometimes it is a library, sometimes it is a NAMI
group, sometimes it is a school – already 66 dialogues, organized because people are just stepping up
and taking responsibility, have happened. Eleven upcoming events are already scheduled, and 47 events
are in the process of being organized but have not yet selected their date. So we, to date, have events
that have – dialogues is a much better word that events – that have occurred in 33 states plus D.C. We
knew it was ambitious when we started but we would really like to have a dialogue in all 50 states. Our
hope was actually to have achieved that by the anniversary of Sandy Hook, so if you know that you are
in a state that has not done this yet and you have a juvenile justice event happening between now and
December 14, we would be deeply grateful if you added an hour to that event.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: We are now in the process of getting the outcomes from the 66 dialogues that
have already happened uploaded where you can look and see. How many people are picking something
about putting more counselors in schools? How many cities are picking something about a better triage
system between providers and hospitals and families? So you can actually look at the outcomes that
people are currently choosing to take action on.
Samples of Distributed Conversations
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: I am going to give you some examples. West Bend, Wisconsin, is part of the
YMCA’s Healthy Living service. They co-sponsored with NAMI-Washington County and the Department
of Human Services a series of five 1-hour community conversations.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: New York City focused directly on African Americans, and in the New York
Society for Ethical Culture, Black Psychiatrists Association and other partners created a 2-hour event,
and their action is to forge new networks that allow African American families and people with issues to
be linked to services more quickly.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: A series of town halls for millennials is culminating next April 25 in a
conference in Palm Beach, Florida, to inform local and statewide legislative and policy change for
individuals living with mental and substance abuse disorders who interact with the legal system. It is
called OK2Talk: Palm Beach County Speaks about Mental Illness and the Legal System. They are going to
bring a lot of judges into the room to increase their understanding of what the community sees their
needs to be.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: A few more examples. Boston, Massachusetts, held an all-day event, the
Many Faces of Mental Health: Sharing our Stories. The Department of Mental Health is running that and
they plan to repeat it in many other locations. So anyone on the phone that lives in Massachusetts, just
contact the Department of Mental Health directly.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: A 2-hour conversation as part of Mental Illness Awareness Week was held at
the Alexandria, Virginia, library and the local mental health agencies all came as support and partners in
the meeting.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: The last example I will give you was a day-long dialogue in Florence, South
Carolina. Clemson University partnered with local mental health agencies, to be followed by additional
events, collaborating to put the outcome of all of those events into an implementation plan for action.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: We are thrilled with the way people are stepping up to this. Pam Hyde and
Kathleen Sebelius, when this horrible tragedy happened, they were who spoke up and said, “Do not do a
commission. Do not make this about the policy people or academics again. Take this out to the
American public.” And, as you can see, the American public has responded profoundly.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: The slide here just shows you the map. You can see we need some help in
those vast Western states that are lower population, much more rural, often not quite as well organized
in terms of the 501(c)(3) structure to support social service kind of work.
www.creatingcommunitysolutions.org
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: Okay, I will just do one more slide that talks about – there is the Website, go
there to find the locations, the partners, to compare outcomes, get ideas, add outcomes. Actually, also,
you will find support for creating the new community conversations, whatever level you want to do it. A
small group in your home, an organization, or a community-wide level. You will also find examples there
about how to engage online, and lots of strategies for communicating through social media. More than
2,000 people have participated already.
Website Resources
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: The Website resources, and in part I am repeating what Wendie said, it gives
you the information on upcoming and past events. You can download the SAMHSA Toolkit there. We
also knew that many of you will never use the amount of background material that we created, so we
gave you a Quick Start Guide. It is literally a how-to, start to finish. It is three pages long and it is
designed for a 2 ½ hour discussion, but you could easily adapt it to make it 2 hours, an hour and a half,
whatever you need it to be. There are Webinars there, which we have done training for people who
want to hold these dialogues. If you have enough of a link across several of your programs in the state,
we do a Webinar specifically for you, if you want it. You will also see all the outcomes and, as I
mentioned already, lots of social media resources.
Text, Talk, and Act December 5
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: Now, the last thing I want to talk to you about is going to happen the day after
tomorrow. And if you do nothing else action-wise as a result of this Webinar, we hope that you will at
least use your list to push this out as broadly as you possibly can. It is a fact that what we are trying has
never been done before in the United States. We all know that young people now are using their cell
phones or their smartphones to communicate more often than any other mode of communication, and
it is usually done by texting. So we have created an initiative called Text, Talk, and Act. We piloted it in
the high school. We piloted it in the college. And young people said to us that not only did they learn
more about mental health than they expected to, but it created a higher level of trust in their classroom.
All of you who work with youth know that part of the dilemma that is happening in this country is the
broken fabric of trust on every level, in terms of trust in our institutions, trust in each other, and if
participating in a short process through texting and talking about mental health is an avenue to
increasing trust in a peer group of young people, that is worth gold.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: It is so easy to do. You start by texting in 89800. We connect you to talk in
groups of four or five people about the issues that are presented, and that group of four or five people
take a decision about what kind of action they want to pursue.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: We are very excited about this. We hope it actually becomes a tool and a
process that schools use to work with their students all the time. I know lots of you are on the phone
that work in school systems. In the Q & A, if we can answer any more questions about this, we would be
delighted to do that.
Questions?
Wendie Veloz: Now back to me. Okay, great. Thank you, Carolyn, for so much information in such a
short amount of time. And as you can hear, Carolyn is very, very passionate about this topic so we will
do all we can to get answers to the questions you have already posed. I know we have several questions
that are already queued up from the chat box. If anybody else would like to submit additional questions
in the chat box, feel free to do so. We will try to answer as many of these as possible before we move on
to the next segment where we talk more in depth about Sacramento.
Wendie Veloz: The first question that we wanted to answer, which we believe, Carolyn, you already did
answer this, but just to clarify again. What are we considering the Lead Cities, the 10 cities, and how do
we find a list of those Lead Cities?
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: Excellent question. You will find the Lead Cities listed on the CCS Website. The
thing that made them unique was the Mayor in the community convened them. The commitment was
for it to be a large scale event where the participants were demographically representative of that
entire community, and they committed to raise at least $100,000 for implementation for a minimum of
a 2 year period of time. I know you will hear from Sacramento that they have already raised more
money and extended that length of time. But just to repeat, the Lead Cities that have already
accomplished the public engagement part are Sacramento, Albuquerque, Washington, D.C.,
metropolitan Kansas City, and Columbus, Ohio. Still upcoming, we believe that Connecticut is likely to
become a statewide process, Colorado is likely to become a statewide process, and we think most likely
the city in the Northwest will be Seattle.
Wendie Veloz: Okay, and while you were talking a little bit about regional aspects of where the cities
are, we had one question that just wanted to know more about how we selected the different cities and
what is going on in the different regions. So let us go back a few slides to the map just to answer that
question as well as another question.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: I think it is probably not surprising to people that the Western United States
has been slower to respond to this than the Midwest and the East. Part of that is all of you who come
out of a culture of both the Plain States and the Real West know that the ethos about individual strength
and taking care of everything yourself or, at most, keeping it in the family, is actually a stronger ethos in
that part of the country than in much of the rest of the country. So we do encourage people to actually
help us on this call to increase the number of pins in the Western United States.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: You see Minnesota looks like it just kind of exploded. That happened because
NAMI, the National Alliance for Mentally Ill, decided to push this out and have their chapters all over the
state actually hold a conversation. But we are delighted and thrilled at how far this has gone, how wide
this has gone, and how impressive the outcomes that are coming in are.
Wendie Veloz: Okay, great. Thank you so much. And I know we had one question about how to get a list
of attendees for this Webinar and possibly connecting to other partners in your region. So I just wanted
Carolyn to address really quickly how Creating Community Solutions brings together partners and what
kind of resources you might offer to folks looking to connect with other partners in their area.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: That is a great question, and this is a question we often get on the Website.
There may be an individual who puts a pin up and says, “I would like to do this in my community, but I
cannot do it by myself.” Colorado Springs comes to mind. The NAMI group in Colorado Springs put in a
pin. A woman who has done a tremendous amount of facilitation of dialogues put in a pin. So we
actually, our community organizer connected those two people, had a telephone conference call, and
together they identified four or five more partners. So that is role we want to play. You will also know,
as I mentioned before, there is a series of Webinars that is logged onto the Website that will talk to you
about how to do outreach, they will talk to you about how to pull together a coalition of organizations
committed to implementation. And, frankly, we would be happy to do a Webinar to suit the Office of
Juvenile Justice in a given geographic location if that became important.
Wendie Veloz: Okay, great. If we could go back to the slide really quickly on the map, I had another
question. What do the pins mean in the map and the color coding? So I just wanted, Carolyn, if you
could briefly explain on this map, there are three colors, kind of a teal color, a red color, and a yellow
color. What do they all mean and how can folks interact with other people who may be representing –
their community may be represented by a group or an organization who already held an event?
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: Okay, I am hoping that I get this right. I have not looked at it myself for a bit,
but I am sure that Mary will correct me if I am wrong. I am quite sure what you will find is that the green
pins are pins that are interested but have not yet held their dialogue. They are still either looking for
additional partners or trying to identify a date. The yellow pins are those that they are done, they have
held their public process and about half of them have their outcomes uploaded and our team is working
to get the outcomes of the other half uploaded. The red pins are committed to it and they have a date,
so if you hopped on a red pin, the one that you see there in Mississippi, you would, in fact, find there
who the local organizer is and what the date of the event is. And there will be a place just to click. I
should have said this to the earlier question. If you go on that red pin, which I believe is in Jackson,
Mississippi, it will have the name of the person who is the organizer, the date of the event, and right
there is a link, if you click on it, it will give you the contact information of how to get in touch. It e-mails
them directly and either you can follow-up with them or they will contact back to you.
Wendie Veloz: And as you explained, some of the information from these communities is listed directly
on the Websites related to their pins. So if you click on a pin, you might also get some information about
what took place in the event, and you can also look for outcomes. If you click the outcomes button on
the Creating Community Solutions Website, you will be able to see the outcomes from the communities
who have already connected and had their event. So all of this information is on
www.creatingcommunitysolutions.org, as we have been listing on the chat box, in case you missed that.
You can also find this information in the Outcomes section and in the Dialogue section. So if you are
looking for more people to reach in your communities, there are a lot of partners like the National
Alliance on Mental Illness, Mental Health America, and other national organizations who have helped us
reach out in these communities. You can engage those partners if you are interested in your community
holding a dialogue.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: Just one other thing. On the Resources page, let us say you are right at the
beginning and you just want some help thinking this through. On the Resources page, if you click on
“Contact Us, “ that will send an e-mail directly to Sue McCormack who is our full-time grassroots
organizer and she will get back in touch with you. She is amazing, I have no idea how she keeps up with
this as quickly as she does. But if you are really at the start point and want to just talk it through a little
bit about how you and your organization might get involved, I would recommend going to the Resources
page, “Contact Us,” and click on Sue McCormack.
Wendie Veloz: And Sue McCormack is fantastic and she will definitely help you in any way she can, and
she will keep all of us informed about what you are doing. So one question I did want to address that
was asked is if we could give examples of partnerships with criminal justice partners. I know Sacramento
will include that in their portion of the Webinar presentation but, Carolyn, did you have any other
thoughts about any examples in that area?
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: I did talk about the one in Palm Beach County. That definitely has a juvenile
justice link. It turns out that the Columbus, Ohio, one, they had done a tremendous amount of work
earlier, once with SAMHSA on mental health first aid, and I do not know, Stephanie, if it was your
program in the Justice Department, but it was a juvenile justice program that had federal money
invested in it.
Wendie Veloz: I believe it was COPS. It might have been COPS.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: I think it was COPS. So Columbus started out right from the beginning having a
very strong link between the juvenile justice piece and the mental health piece, and I know that Fran
Frazier would be happy to talk with any of you about that link.
Wendie Veloz: Okay, and I know from my experience in the Lead Cities, that Creating Community
Solutions has done a lot of work around making sure that the Lead Cities have demographically
representative participants in the community conversations they have held addressing any cultural
nuances in the communities. But can you tell us a little bit more about what other communities are
doing to address cultural nuances?
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: I think there are two things that are the most important for us to identify. I
did not say much about this at the beginning, but the seven organizations that are leading this, they all
come out of the field of the importance in the United States of the public’s voices being heard in policy
and resource decisions. So I led AmericaSpeaks for a long time. Every project we ever did in the city
translated the material, sometimes as many as five or eight languages. So one of the cultural sensitivities
is making sure that the materials for this work are translated into the languages that are important.
Clearly, in this context in terms of federal Websites there are two languages, English and Spanish. But
some of the communities have gone ahead and translated it into other languages, so that could be
another question you would ask on the Website. “Do you have the materials translated into…” whatever
language.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: The second piece that I would say is that when this work is done, we pay a lot
of attention to the facilitation of the conversations. That, again, is a way that we would provide coaching
work in any of the projects that you might want our help, in which we actually provide a unit of cultural
sensitivity training to the table facilitators. For example, in communities that have a high Muslim
concentration, some of the sensitivities particularly about the differences between Muslim women and
Muslim men in terms of the support they are going to need to speak up in a conversation. So we actually
have someone trained at the table that understands how to go about, in a culturally sensitive way,
making sure that every voice is heard.
Wendie Veloz: Great, and kind of along the lines, sticking with the idea of cities, before we move to a
question about Text, Talk, Act, let us finish up the questions about what is going on in the cities. So one
of the questions we had was: Where can we find an extensive description of the Lead Cities, besides the
Mayors involved? And what are the requirements to be a Lead City? I think the second part we already
answered. But where can they find more information specifically about the Lead Cities?
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: The most important thing to do, because they are up to date at this point, is
to click on whichever city or several cities you want to look at. The stories are very complete at this
point, there is videotape on each of those cities. And in each of those places – I will just give
Washington, D.C., as an example – once you have looked at the material on the Washington, D.C., site
there would be contact information for Steve Brigham, who was the lead from AmericaSpeaks, and it
would be easy for you to be in phone or e-mail contact with Steve if you even want to dive deeper. But
look first at the Outcomes section and each Lead City. I think you will be amazed. The kind of poll
questions that Wendie was asking you here, we asked those poll questions with those meeting. All of
the data about how people responded to those poll questions are there. Every tables’ conversations
were themed. The content of those table conversations is there. There is a tremendous amount of
material about what happened in each of the cities. What is not there yet, but will be coming, and I
think you will hear from Sacramento, is each city is committed to actually creating an action plan. Those
action plans will also be put up on the Website, as will action plans that will be less comprehensive and
probably have less number of items in them from every city that has participated. But I think in the end,
the most important document will be the action plans for implementation.
Wendie Veloz: Okay, and I think we had a follow-up question to that question that says: Are there any
differences in participation across the demographics? I assume this means in the different cities holding
dialogue.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: Well, because the organizations that partnered in each city made a
commitment to meet the demographics of the region, what I can say is in some cities, who the hardest
to reach populations are are different. But because the commitment was made, we actually did achieve
the full demographic representation very close to statistically significant in each of the cities. But we did
a Webinar on outreach that I think if you are concerned about a particular population in your
community, looking at the Webinar on outreach you would find very helpful. Also, very important is this
demographic data is all in the outcome reports that I talked about in response to the last question.
Wendie Veloz: Yes, they have done a really good job cataloguing who is participating and what
demographic they represent, including LGBTQ populations, youth, individuals with lived experience, and
individuals who have lived experience with family members. So there is a lot of interesting information
for those of us who follow mental health really in depth in some of these communities.
Wendie Veloz: The last question I wanted to get to, there is one really quick easy one that I think Carolyn
mentioned before, that the resources are available in English and in Spanish. The Toolkit for Community
Conversations developed by SAMHSA has been translated and adapted completely in Spanish. All three
guides and the infographic will be available very soon on www.samhsa.gov, so you will be able to
download or even order print copies of the Spanish version. So no need in translating those parts of the
Toolkit, however the other resources that are available on www.creatingcommunitysolutions.org are in
English, along with several adaptations that have been done by different communities. So that is a quick
answer to that question.
Wendie Veloz: Now I want to get to a little bit more specific question about Text, Talk, Act, which is
taking place on December 5. So the question, Carolyn, I think the first question about Text, Talk, Act
was: Do groups need to convene themselves or will you convene them into groups of four or five? So if
you could explain the model a little bit about how folks go through the process to participate in Text,
Talk, Act.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: As I mentioned before, we are trying something that has never been tried
before. So as people have signed up and registered to actually participate, we have made it clear in the
materials and the messaging – which I am going to interrupt myself. I should have said this before. The
Text, Talk, Act, the messages are in the Handouts pod, so that is a good place to go for even more detail
after we finish this conversation. But we are actually asking people to be four people sitting together in
a room. So you are texting independently, but once you have done your texting, then you sit and have a
conversation, and a little while into the conversation we will text you the next question. Then you talk a
little bit more, and we text you the next question. Then when you have come to a decision about what
you might want to do together, you actually send that information back to us. So we are making a link
between – it is a small group, it can be with friends, we are doing it in classrooms where maybe the
classroom is 25 people and the faulty member has just organized the students into groups of four. This
can be done in a youth development program. This can be done in an after school program. It is very
easy and, frankly, we were just surprised and thrilled at the level of commitment of the students who
participated in this in our pilots. It went much deeper and their sense of having learned new
information, because we are also texting out some of the same information that is in the Toolkit during
the process. So they actually learn something, they have a chance to – I am going to stop here and say
lots of the kids in the two pilots actually shared either their own personal stories about their own lived
experience or about a story of someone in their family or a friend. And very often, because we were all
listening to this, very often you would hear them say, “I have never told anyone this before.” And no
matter what kind of issue any of us are dealing with, health, mental health, behavioral, the first step is
articulating and having the confidence to tell your own story. So it is our hope that the thousands of
people that are going to participate on this the day after tomorrow, that that will happen for a lot of
young people. If you, again, want other resources besides what you are finding in the Handouts pod, if
you go to the TTA page on the Community Solutions Website, it has all the information including a short
video, which we were able to take out of the pilot process, which therefore will give you a very, very
concrete sense of how this works.
Wendie Veloz: Great, and if there are any other further questions about Text, Talk, Act, we actually have
a gentleman on the Creating Community Solutions team named Matt Leighninger who is very
knowledgeable about how this works and he can answer some of the more technical questions that we
received, including this question about the age range of Text, Talk, Act participants. We do know that
school-age youth can participate, so that is kind of a short answer to that, but we will be happy to get
anyone in contact with the Creating Community Solutions team planning this event.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: Actually, I can answer that one. We are doing it starting in middle schools. We
are not going any younger than middle schools, and lots of colleges are participating. So we are looking
at young people ages 13 to 25, 26.
Wendie Veloz: And adults, too, right?
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: Yes.
Wendie Veloz: And adults, too, so you can also do…
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: But the focus really is on youth.
Wendie Veloz: Yes, absolutely. The other question we got really quickly was : Is there going to be
another Text, Talk, Act event? We are still looking at opportunities and possibly in the spring, so if any of
you are interested, please let us know and we will be happy to keep you in the loop as we plan future
Text, Talk, Act activities.
The Sacramento Experience
Wendie Veloz: Okay, so now we are going to move into the Sacramento experience. This is the second
part of our Webinar, and we are very fortunate to be joined by two dynamic speakers. First, I will
introduce Elaine Abelaye-Mateo. She is the consultant from Everyday Impact Consulting, and she will be
presenting along with Tom Campbell from AmericaSpeaks. Both of them are representing the team in
Sacramento so they are not the only folks working in Sacramento, and they will give you the perspective
of what has been going on, what have they accomplished, and how they are going to get to the
outcomes that they envisioned for their community. So now I will turn it over to Elaine and Tom.
A Lead City Example: Sacramento
Elaine Abelaye-Mateo: Hi, good morning from California. This is Elaine Abelaye-Mateo. I am thrilled to
share our work here in Sacramento, but more importantly I really hope to illustrate what the Creating
Community Solutions work could look like in your community as you kind of think about if this is
something that you could do in your state, in your city. So in Sacramento, we held our Creating
Community Solutions Day of Dialogue on July 20. I had the pleasure of leading the outreach effort and
continued by providing staff support in the development of the community action plan alongside Tom
Campbell. We had a dynamic showing of over 350 diverse participants from the Sacramento community,
and, like Carolyn said, over 30 percent were young people between the ages of 16 to 24, and the day
was a 6-hour day in July. It was very interactive. We themed ideas and voted live, and it was a great
opportunity to both education on the topic of mental health and get community feedback.
Elaine Abelaye-Mateo: In Sacramento, we had a strong showing of community leadership who really
championed the event and kind of the follow up steps, the action planning, and now moving over to the
Request for Proposal process. In Sacramento, we had a strong showing of community leadership, those
leaders included our Mayor, we had a state senator, a congresswoman, and various local elected
officials.
Elaine Abelaye-Mateo: Just a quick note about Sacramento’s diversity, which Carolyn noted in her
presentation. We are a very, very diverse community. Several years ago, Trend magazine, in fact, touted
Sacramento as one of the most diverse cities in the Nation, and we are really proud to share that we
were able to reach a wonderful representation of that diversity, which I will discuss a little later in my
presentation.
Funding Partnership
Elaine Abelaye-Mateo: In Sacramento, we are very fortunate to have the support of some really great
foundations who provided the resources to host the Day of Dialogue, but to also support the action
planning, which Tom will discuss in more detail. So those foundation partners include: the Sierra Health
Foundation, The California Endowment, The California Wellness Foundation, and Blue Shield of
California Foundation.
Sacramento Action Planning Process
Elaine Abelaye-Mateo: So our action planning process. In Sacramento, we were one of the first cities to
host our Day of Dialogue through the Creating Community Solutions initiative. I think Albuquerque
actually hosted theirs on the same day. So, in many ways we help kind of design our own path in terms
of process. Following the Day of Dialogue in July, everyone understood, everybody who participated
understood that the content that came out of that dialogue, out of that event, would result in the
development of the action plan, and that is really key. The action plan would then support a 12 to 18
month implementation period. So after the big event on July 20, we hosted a series of action planning
meetings, which were led by Tom. At the end of last month, we have completed the action plan, which I
believe is available for viewing as well. And right now we have a Request for Proposal, we have an RFP
out to support the implementation process.
Elaine Abelaye-Mateo: So here is something that is fairly innovative about the Creating Community
Solutions approach. The framework is really cross-cutting as it engages multiple sectors and domains.
Let me just share here, so stakeholders that have participated have included multiple sectors, education
being one of them, juvenile justice. I heard the question earlier, the question about how are juvenile
justice partners being engaged. Sierra Health Foundation, which is one of the funders who is
participating along with us, is actually rolling out or has rolled out a Positive Youth Justice initiative. So
they are deeply involved in youth justice work and, obviously, they are at the table as a funder of this
initiative here in Sacramento. Obviously, local funders, we have local government, both city and county
participate, first responders, law enforcement, mental health and substance abuse practitioners, faith
based organizations, those involved in health care, and a myriad of social services including workforce
development, which is really important to the youth demographic, and youth development services. It is
also worth noting that we actively engage young people in the process as well.
Elaine Abelaye-Mateo: So the point here is that when we talk about the Creating Community Solutions
approach, that the framework really casts the net wide. We were very intentional about engaging
multiple stakeholders, both in the event, in the action planning, and then as we moved towards
implementation. So it really becomes this community process.
A TRUE Community Process
Elaine Abelaye-Mateo: So talking a bit about the community process, we worked really hard to get a
broad-based representation at the Day of Dialogue and then following the event. Some of the ways we
did that are by reaching out and making personal contact with trusted community leaders. So I know
that many of you who are on the call today represent both juvenile justice and education sectors, so I
am sure you know all too well that in order to genuinely engage young people, trust is extremely
important. And especially around this topic of mental health, which can be a very sensitive topic to
engage them in. So working through the community leaders, their trusted leaders, helped bring them to
the table, and what we are finding is it is helping to sustain their participation over time.
Elaine Abelaye-Mateo: Diverse participation. Considering the diversity of our community in Sacramento,
we went to very great lengths to – our approach was really to eliminate any barriers that a community
member might have in participating. So in addition to transportation resources, providing food and child
care at the event, we, as Carolyn mentioned, we provided written materials, we had translators
available in five different languages.
Elaine Abelaye-Mateo: Youth participation. Youth participation was very key to the success of the event.
And I do not have to tell you folks who work with young people, getting young people to an event on a
Saturday in July for 6 hours was not necessarily an easy feat, but we were able to do that because of the
way in which we approached the engagement of the young people. We ended up enlisting a local youth
group, the Sacramento Building Healthy Communities Youth Media Team to conduct the youth-to-youth
outreach. So we had the young people going out and talking about the [audio drops out/in] of other
people coming to this event and participating and having their voice heard. They also kind of drove the
outreach process and told us, “Here are the tools that we need to use. We need to use Twitter. We need
to use Facebook.” They designed a series of video vignettes that helped them describe, from a youth
voice and youth perspective, mental health and some of the challenges that they are facing. So the
young people really illustrated for themselves why it is important for other young people to be at the
table.
Elaine Abelaye-Mateo: Finally, a place for everyone at the decision-making table. As the group moved
into the action planning process, we were really intent on making it an inclusive process. If this is going
to be about Creating Community Solutions, we really need to make sure that the community is involved.
Outreach Process
Elaine Abelaye-Mateo: So the outreach process, I will just mention a couple of things here. In order to
reach a broad cross-section of the community, we really [audio drops out/in] reframed their thoughts,
beliefs, and assumptions about mental health. So we encouraged people to think about mental health
beyond the serious illness and think about stress, think about anger, think about being sad, all of this is
part of mental health. In some communities, in fact, in some ethnic communities this concept of mental
health does not really exist. So we had to do things like changing the flyer. We asked questions. We did
not talk about Day of Dialogue mental health event on July 20. We asked questions like, “Do you get
stressed? Do you feel sad? Do you get angry?” to help turn the dial in their understanding of mental
health and engage them in the process.
Elaine Abelaye-Mateo: We enlisted a broader base, and I think that this is important because, as it
relates to Creating Community Solutions, it really was a community effort. The recommendations that
are within the action plan, that Tom will describe a little later, were created by a myriad of stakeholders.
Again, as part of the design, we were intentional about bringing in multiple domains and sectors, which
included traditional mental health service providers who participated and provided input, but they did
not necessarily dominate the discussion. So an example is Youth Voice, the young people who were at
the table were just as engaged and their voice was just as equally strong as mental health practitioners
at the table. And when we did the outreach, we impressed upon those that we were reaching out to
that we were really trying to reach a large cross-section in the diverse makeup of the community, which
for many people was very intriguing because for some stakeholders, they did not necessarily feel like
they had a place at the table. So being asked to participate in the discussion, to be asked to be part of
the solution kind of turned the dial for them.
Elaine Abelaye-Mateo: Then, because of the design in our outreach, we were able to reach key
community leaders. We asked them to be ambassadors in their community and to their constituency.
What we found were two things. One, people were hungry to be part of this conversation. I cannot
stress this enough, if you are thinking about having this conversation in your community, it is very
worthwhile because what we are hearing from folks is that they have not been able to engage their
communities in discussions like these. And so it was a great opportunity to have that dialogue as a
community. The folks that we spoke to were able to talk about some of the challenges that they were
having, the real challenges they were having to access and getting services, and having access to the
programs that they needed for their constituency groups. So that is the first thing, people really wanted
to have the conversation.
Elaine Abelaye-Mateo: Then, two, what we are finding is that just by casting the net out and saying to
people, “Be a part of this conversation,” that we are normalizing the mental health discussion through
the outreach in a lot of ways. By putting it out there, people had to think about it, struggle with it, think
about what we are doing well, what we are not doing well. One really great example is that for the
young people, they were able to really think through what mental health means for them. Right? So
they actually, as a result, their outreach and their peer-to-peer outreach work, they came back and said,
“Hey, we may need some resources, we may need some support as we are learning more about our own
mental health.” So we just thought that was fantastic and, again, another reason for folks to really think
about having this conversation in a way that it makes sense in your communities, because it will help
turn the dial.
Elaine Abelaye-Mateo: With that, I will hand off to Wendie who will ask our next poll question about
societal discrimination against those with mental health challenges.
Poll Question #2
Wendie Veloz: Okay. Thanks, Elaine, and welcome, everyone, again to the next poll question, Poll #2.
Here we are asking: Do you believe society discriminates against people who have a mental illness? So if
you could click the appropriate box and let us know what you think. And, of course, this is your own
opinion. It looks like folks are answering the poll. I will give it another couple of seconds for folks to click
in and give us their answers. Once again, do you believe that society discriminates against individuals
who have mental illnesses?
Wendie Veloz: Okay, it looks like we have a fair amount of people saying they agree or strongly agree,
and a couple of folks say that they do not necessarily agree with that, but it looks like a majority of
people represented in this poll agree or strongly agree that society does discriminate in some element
against individuals with a mental illness. So let us go on from here and listen more to what Tom and
Elaine have to say, and lead us through the rest of the Webinar. Thanks.
Discrimination is a Problem
Elaine Abelaye-Mateo: So obviously, based on the last poll, discrimination is a real issue. We know what
the problems are, we know that barriers do exist. Right? So changing the reaction to mental health and
mental illness so that it is recognized and normalized and people feel comfortable seeking treatment.
That is kind of what we are trying to move towards. And then acknowledging the barriers and taboos in
cultural communities, that was very relevant for Sacramento as we helped to kind of get people to the
resources that they need. I am now going to pass it over to Tom who is going to take us through
Sacramento’s action planning and talk about some of the creative problem solving that our group has
done and has worked to kind of address some of these complex issues and barriers. So, Tom?
Tom Campbell: Thanks, Elaine. I think it is really wonderful to be with all of you today and to have
somebody like Elaine who is very invested in that community. We really could not have done it without
her. She has really great connections through all the various cultural communities, and I thought we
were very successful as a result of her work. I do want to mention on the question of the demographics,
one point that did come up, we found – I think it was like almost 65/35, more women than men
attended the event. So that was probably, of all the diversity and the questions and representative
sample we had, that was the one issue, and I found that in other ways, maybe women are more
interested in this issue, but we certainly did not have that issue with youth.
Day of Dialogue: Four Discussion Sessions
Tom Campbell: So I wanted to just quickly run through what we did during the Day of Dialogue. Carolyn
mentioned the four sessions that we worked on. We did this over a 6-hour day. I want to look a little bit
at the challenges and barriers, and then look at what the needs are for youth in two age bands, 12 to 17
and transition age youth, which we call the TAY youth, 18 to 24, and what we did with the action
planning process.
Grouping the Challenges
Tom Campbell: So after you have this discussion about the importance of mental health to you and your
community, we gave a set of challenges that people discussed. So we grouped those into three areas.
Some of the challenges are in your attitudes and beliefs, and I think this was actually the most significant
area where people felt that our attitudes and beliefs really prevent people from seeking treatment. I
know in Sacramento, probably as in many areas of the country, there is a huge treatment gap. People do
not seek treatment, partly because of attitudes and beliefs, some of it is access to services and
affordability, but clearly our attitudes and beliefs affect how well people seek treatment. An interesting
point that came up, stigma was often the number one issue, but for youth, the 30 percent in the room,
bullying was more significant than stigma, and maybe that is because stigma is more of an adult word,
but bullying was very significant in preventing people from seeking treatment, as well as sexual
orientation, some of the cultural bias, and language barriers.
Tom Campbell: Obviously, some of the serious mental health issues are significant to whether they
would be able to seek mental health treatment. Substance abuse, trauma is a much more significant
issue in the last few years, and suicide has always been fairly difficult to treat and has been very
consistent in its rates of prevalence.
Tom Campbell: We also looked at the underlying problems, and people certainly saw that being low
income and in poverty, being in homelessness is a problem, as well as the tie in to the criminal justice
system and the jails. So, obviously, getting a job is a very significant issue, and being able to have the
income to seek treatment were very important.
Youth Services/Needs: Ages 12 to 17
Tom Campbell: So in our discussions, and these were 35 to 40 minute conversations, these were the
recommendations that came up from 350 people in Sacramento. They wanted more peer support
groups and safe places to explore the mental health issues. And, as Elaine said, having somebody that is
a trusted advisor, somebody that you can go to was very significant in some of the theming work that
people had.
Tom Campbell: Being able to have after school activities with positive youth development. Some better
role models, not just people who are having problems, but people that can really demonstrate the ways
in which we can be positive in our lives and be able to be successful. And, as you know, after school
drop-in programs are very significant.
Tom Campbell: Social media campaigns, and I will go through how this is translating into our action plan.
Tom Campbell: They wanted more clinically trained professionals in the schools and helping to train
teachers on what to look for in terms of signs and symptoms and early identification.
Tom Campbell: They actually wanted more mental health in the curriculum. So let us not just have a
health class, but be able to think about ways that we could actually bring the conversation into the
curriculum, which I thought was pretty interesting. That trusted place to go, we have explored the
health center in the school may need to be broadened to have counselors there, but not to make it the
go-to mental health counselor. Make it a job counseling center, a program where people feel like they
are not just going in for an issue.
Tom Campbell: Workforce training and transition support was not only significant here, but in the 18 to
24 age, which I will go to next.
Youth Services/Needs: Ages 18 to 24
Tom Campbell: So the transition age youth is significant because this is when they age out of some of
the Medicaid services, Medi-Cal in California. They often fall through the cracks. They have more difficult
issues in getting support services. So being able to have access to services and health insurance for this
age group is really significant.
Tom Campbell: Service navigators have become a topic, a program that is coming through the
Affordable Care Act and somewhat through the Disability programs. But having services that can help
really refer an individual so that there is a better hand-off between the child and adult systems.
Tom Campbell: The need for mobile crisis services and being able to do that in places where they do find
themselves, whether within the jail system, within some of the homelessness in some of the areas that
they are struggling to survive.
Tom Campbell: A link to more career counseling, job placement, and internships. We brought the
Workforce Investment Program more directly into this. And, again, with this group, mentoring and peer
support groups. So being able to get access to job opportunities and internships, and that fundamental
independence and support is really critical for this age band.
Tom Campbell: I wanted to just give you – and I think Wendie will do this – a poll question that I think is
significant.
Poll Question #3
Wendie Veloz: Okay, everyone. Welcome back for a poll question that is going to test your knowledge
about mental health problems and when they present themselves. What percent of adults’ mental
health problems begin before the age of 14? Is it 15 percent, 25 percent, 50 percent, or 65 percent?
Wendie Veloz: Looks like folks are voting and we may be getting 50 percent, 65 percent as the top two
answers. I will give you just another second. Any last votes? Okay, so it looks like about 20 percent of
you got the answer correct. It is 25 percent. So about one-quarter of mental health problems present
themselves before the age of 14. And for this fact, along with other facts you can use to help build
knowledge about mental health, you can go to the information brief which is part of the Toolkit and it
will give you a lot of statistics like these, as well as the references to reference the research that
supports them.
Wendie Veloz: Okay, now we will turn it back to Tom.
Sacramento Action Plan Strategies
Tom Campbell: So I know we do not have a lot of time left and I will run through these fairly fast. I
wanted to give you – these are the action plan strategies. I gave you the recommendations that came
from the Day of Dialogue for the two age bands, and now you have – the full action plan is listed in the
files there in the upper corner. So if you want to read the full plan, feel free to look into it. Obviously,
this is Sacramento-based, but we have really the benefit of the foundations who really believe in the
relationship between mental health and health care, so they are willing to support us in the process to
carry these action plan strategies forward. So I am going to go through these one by one.
Tom Campbell: Looking at leadership and support for mental health. Making sure we continue this
conversation. It is not just that you can have a conversation on one day and think that you have really
gotten very far on it. Building a broad-based effort to identify the early signs and symptoms. Building the
youth into a social media campaign to address mental health issues. The very significant issue of
integrating behavioral and mental health services much more into primary health care services. A
navigational system for accessing services, making that up-to-date. Building a system of care, there are
many systems of care out there for children ages zero to 18, and sometimes up to 21, but a more
specific one for transition age youth. And then ensuring all of our services meet the standards, especially
in Sacramento, for cultural and language competencies.
1. Build Leadership and Support
Tom Campbell: So this is stuff that I think is important to think about. If you are going to do a discussion,
then what? What are we going to do once we come up with some action planning strategies? For
Sacramento and California, Senator Darrell Steinberg was kind of the father of Proposition 63, a very
significant actor in creating additional resources for mental health. But I think the important point for us
was that this conversation needs to continue and we need leadership in the community. It is not just
leadership for those that have the services and the mental health and drug and alcohol boards. It really
needs to broaden into the corporations and the county leadership that is there. So we have a Request
for Proposal to put out to organizations that will then support the leadership of the plan, and our
Executive Committee will continue to manage the process going forward.
2. Continue the Conversation
Tom Campbell: We had a full hour dialogue tape that was done by the public access station in
Sacramento, so we have created this program so it can be done on TV and online, and we are using that
then in some of the curriculae within the schools to continue this conversation. Then you can link those
kinds of conversations that would occur throughout the community in Sacramento to the Creating
Community Solutions team. One of the great things about the national effort here is we can really
compare some of the outcomes from what is occurring in the various communities and learn from each
other. I just finished a big one on October 12 in D.C., and there were a lot of commonalities, but there
were things that we need to think about and how we can do this better, especially through social media.
3. Broad-Based Early Identification
Tom Campbell: Significant across all of our program was how can we train various professionals, even
working with youth themselves, to create a better identification of the signs and symptoms of mental
health challenges. While the serious emotionally disturbed children and youth may have more access to
mental health programs, it is really those 20 percent that may not, they may have signs and symptoms
but need access to services. So we are working on – Youth Mental Health First Aid is a great program, it
is a good starting point, and we are working on all the different efforts that are out there, whether it be
on bullying or violence reduction, suicide prevention. How do we create a more integrated campaign for
accessing services and using the broad base of mental and behavioral health to create an early
identification program?
Linkage to Positive Youth Justice
Tom Campbell: I just want to mention this, too, because Elaine said it as well. There is a lot of interest in
working with crossover youth, those involved in both welfare and the juvenile justice systems, with
wrap around services. A key component of that has been trauma-informed care systems and working on
how do we really deal with some of the signs and symptoms of those that have had trauma in their lives,
how do we build better qualified programs that are informed on how to provide care for youth that
have trauma? It was a very significant issue in both Sacramento and in Washington, D.C.
4. Youth Driven Social Media Campaign
Tom Campbell: As we have mentioned, we are moving forward on creating a better social media
platform that is designed by youth. So they will be moving forward on looking at how do we create some
positive messages, how do we get access to services? And really provide some strong youth leadership
in these efforts. I think I was very impressed by how this galvanized a broad base of the youth in looking
at these issues, not just sort of on the broader question of mental health, but how do we then take
some action and create access to services?
5. Integrate Mental Health and Health Care Services
Tom Campbell: A large issue that I think is kind of hanging around in the mental health world, behavioral
health world, is that we really need to look at how do we create greater integration with the primary
care clinics, the schools, the pediatricians, so they can know they can identify these signs and symptoms
and have a place to refer. So we are working very closely with the health care providers. The Affordable
Care Act brings in some new access to mental health services, so once those services are better able to
be accessed, we want to make sure that the primary care clinics and pediatricians know how to diagnose
and refer.
6. Enhance Service Navigator System
Tom Campbell: I mentioned the service navigator system. We want to tailor that much more specifically
to the kinds of programs in our community. Also look for how do we create a toolkit and online guide for
accessing those services that can be up to date?
7. Create TAY System of Care
Tom Campbell: The transition age youth, as I have mentioned a little bit about, but there are various
counties and places around the country that are doing an excellent job of specifically providing services.
So our recommendation, our action step here is that we really need to think about how we create a
system of care for transition age youth, integrating behavioral health, looking at early identification of
mental health needs. I think very specifically the employment services sector is one that we want to
work much more directly with and to help them understand signs and symptoms and the ability to
address mental health issues.
8. Ensure Services Meet Cultural Competency Standards
Tom Campbell: Finally, as certainly important in Sacramento, being able to review all these programs.
Are they not only providing materials, but also being able to have access to translators, being able to
think about some of the cultural taboos and issues when they do not have a definition for mental health,
and be able to provide some really good culturally relevant programs to meet the need locally.
Tom Campbell: I think both Elaine and I can maybe address questions for a few minutes. I know we do
not have a lot of time.
Questions?
Wendie Veloz: Yes, exactly. So we will review a couple of questions that have already been asked, and
then let folks know that they can also ask additional questions if you need to. So for the first question, I
think we had a question earlier about how the state mental health organizations have been involved in
any of this effort. And I can actually answer that question so I will go ahead and do it very quickly. We
have not directly reached out for every single community event to the state mental health
organizations. Some of them have found the events on the Website. We also have NASMHPD
[pronounced “NASHBID”] as a partner so we have reached out to many states through NASMHPD to
make sure they know what is going on in their states. Also, Sue and another colleague of ours, Mary
Jacksteit, will help facilitate some of those connections for folks who are planning community
conversations. So if you have a community event and you would like to partner with your state mental
health organization, get in touch with Creating Community Solutions and they, as well as I, will help you
contact your state folks to get them engaged in your efforts as well.
Wendie Veloz: Okay, so the next question, this is for Tom and Elaine. They had a question about the
number of youth who were included in the effort, and they were not sure I think about the age groups.
Could you just give a quick description of what youth were participating in Sacramento and how old they
were?
Tom Campbell: Elaine, I am looking to you on this one.
Elaine Abelaye-Mateo: So we had over 100 young people. What I can do is I was trying to gather the
exact numbers, but in terms of the percentages, we had 17 percent of the people in the room were
between the ages of 14 and 18, and 13 percent were between the ages of 19 and 24.
Wendie Veloz: Great. I think the question was asking how many people were surveyed, and I just want
to clarify that those were the participants at the actual event in Sacramento who were surveyed onsite
during the event.
Wendie Veloz: Okay, the next question we had in the chat which I answered already is: How is this going
to be paid for? Some of those details Carolyn gave earlier in the presentation. But, Carolyn, do you have
any other facts about how communities can fund these kinds of activities?
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: That is a great question, and I am sure that all of you know that this is – I have
been surprised in doing this work about how difficult funding for mental health is. Here is what we have
found is most possible. Community foundations very often have a closer to the ground understanding of
these kinds of issues than do other kinds of foundations. There is a small number of communities in the
country that are fortunate to have an actual foundation that is dedicated to mental health. I think there
is one in Akron, Ohio, called the Margaret-something- Clark Foundation, and that is all they do is fund
mental health. So the first thing to do is go to your Website and look at the listing of foundations in your
area and what those specific topics are.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: The other area that we have found really very valuable is many families who
have dealt with this sort of affliction in a serious way who are affluent at least enough to be middle class
or upper middle class or higher net worth, very often appreciate and understand the challenges that the
whole community faces, not just their family. So identifying a family like that has been very, very helpful
in many communities. Scattergood Foundation is another one in Philadelphia where that is their primary
mission.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: There are a few jurisdictions where the politicians sitting in elected offices
understand that these challenges are very significant and have, even in these hard, scarce times,
committed to actually provide some funding. We think that will happen in Ohio. We are pretty confident
it will happen in Colorado. So taking a good look at who the Mayor is, what the council is, if you are
dealing with this at the city level. Or as in most states, the whatever federal funds that are coming into a
state come in through the county commissioners. So most of the Lead Cities have involved the executive
director of the county commissioners, as well as the other folks that we were talking about.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: Frankly, another source, and you can quickly learn this from your Department
of Mental Health, the country’s social services in mental health mainly come in through private sector
behavioral health companies, and they service different geographies across the Nation. So Providence
Health, for example, has a big interest in Washington, D.C., and were helpful. Santam is another
company that came up with some funds for some of our work. So do a scan of what are the behavioral
health companies that are selling insurance policies in your state and find the right person, six degrees
of separation, to talk with them.
Wendie Veloz: And I also want to give another example of a mental health organization who has really
helped us, a foundation that we did not know about until the National Dialogue came up, called the
Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health out of Oregon. They have been a fantastic partner through
this whole process, so we are really thankful for their efforts as well.
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: I realize all of us spend so much time concerned about actual fiscal resources,
that I also want to say that many of the 66 smaller conversations that are on the Web have done their
entire work by in-kind contributions from organizations, the library providing the space or the church
providing a space, or a PTA providing food and drink for a shorter conversation. So in a way, you may be
more interested in looking at what is the combination of partners that could give you in-kind support
rather than thinking about having to create actual dollars to pay for it.
Wendie Veloz: Great. It looks like we do not have any other questions in the chat box, and we are
getting ready to wrap up, so I just want to give a couple of announcements as we wait for any…Go
ahead, Carolyn?
Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer: I actually was looking back again at the frequently asked questions about Text,
Talk, and Act, and this question came up earlier. But that platform is going to stay live for a whole month
after December 5. So as you are thinking about a network or a list that you were interested in and you
believe that 48 hours is too short of notice, it is entirely possible to actually participate by going onto the
platform after December 5. And as Wendie already said, all that means, all you have to do to get to that
platform is texting the number that is in the slides to begin with. And as Wendi said, if this is as
successful as we believe it is, we will be repeating it again in the spring.
Wendie Veloz: Yes. So we would really appreciate your feedback and engagement to let us know how
you would like to participate, if possible, in the future. First of all, I wanted to thank all of our speakers
on today’s Webinar, Tom, Elaine, and Carolyn. Thank you so much for all the work that you are doing.
Thank you for the folks that you represent in the communities and in the organizations who have been
our partners through this whole process. We are very happy that the Office of Juvenile Justice Programs
has asked us to collaborate in this way, and I just wanted to mention also that we have been
collaborating across the federal agencies on this particular initiative. So we have worked with the White
House, with Department of Ed, with CDC, as well as the National Institute on Mental Health. So we have
a lot of federal partners and federal resources invested in this as well, so we encourage you to contact
us if you would like to get involved, and we will be happy to connect you with the right partners.
Wendie Veloz: Also, just on behalf of SAMHSA and OJJDP, thank you for joining our Webinar and we
hope that you will share this information with your professional networks, with your friends, and with
your communities. Please share the information about Text, Talk, and Act widely, and also the Toolkit as
well. And we hope that you will share the Web resources and the Websites as well, so
www.mentalhealth.gov, www.creatingcommunitysolutions.org, and www.samhsa.gov.
Wendie Veloz: I wanted to just do a quick reminder for Text, Talk, and Act. We also will use the hashtag
#texttalkact on social media, so on Twitter. If you want to know what is going on on December 5, you
can also log onto Twitter and search #texttalkact and you will be able to follow the conversation and
people engaging on social media.
Wendie Veloz: Okay, lastly, if you could, before you click off of this Webinar, go ahead and take a quick
evaluation and just let us know how we did, and give us any other feedback or thoughts that you may
have. Thank you so much for your participation. Have a wonderful day.
[End.]