Behavioral Health LAC make plans for film festival

The Hill County Behavioral Health Local Advisory Council held a meeting Monday, in which they discussed an upcoming film festival they plan to run.

The festival, which is planned for the evenings of May 11-14, is open to the public and is intended to raise awareness about behavioral health.

The event will feature documentaries about the issue including “Paper Tigers,” “Resilience” and “Wrestling Ghosts.”

A public discussion about the films and behavioral health will be held after the showings. It was suggested that interested students from the middle and high schools could use this time after the films to talk about their own experiences as part of the discussion.

Montana State University Hill County Extension Agent Jasmine Carbajal suggested that this would be a good time to advertise upcoming mental health first-aid trainings. Although, no solid plans have been made about when to hold the training, it was proposed that it would be in late May or early June.

Montana State University-Norhern Professor Curtis Smeby said the Boys & Girls Club of the Hi-Line had offered to host the event in its building if the council agreed to provide volunteers to run the event.

A motion was made to officially work with the Boys & Girls Club, and it passed unanimously.

A discussion also was held about expanding the film festival to have weekend showings of non-documentary films related to behavioral health.

“I think if we want to focus on awareness, and make sure that we’re reaching as many people as possible, we do need to look at a weekend,” Carbajal said.

“I definitely think the documentaries are going to attract a different audience than if we showed a mainstream movie,” said Montana State University Northern Student Support Services Counselor Amber Spring, who was named vice-chair by unanimous vote earlier in the meeting after Smeby withdrew himself from consideration. “… I think they’re both important.”

The council proposed that these weekend showings take place at the Havre-Hill County Library, but acknowledged that what films they could show would depend on what the library has access to.

The council also discussed the status of the group’s website.

The official website, which had been infected with malware, has been fixed, but some issues still are happening with regaining access to it. For now, the QR codes found on the council’s posters that can be scanned will lead to the group’s Facebook page rather than the website.

Smeby said the Montana Mental Health Central Service Area Authority has expressed an interested in increasing support for LACs, saying that only about half of them are currently active, though he added the CSAA is already trying to do a lot with a $25,000 budget.

“We’re trying to do all of these things on effectively a shoestring,” he said.