LAC looks at setting new events on pandemic effects

The Hill County Behavioral Health Local Advisory Council discussed setting up new events in May at its monthly meeting Monday, where members also adopted a new model for its regular meetings.

During the meeting, LAC Vice-Chair Amber Spring said May is Mental Health Awareness Month and she thinks they should work to set up some roundtables and keynote speakers to talk about the effects that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the mental health of various facets of the community.

Spring said she’d be interested in seeing the subjects of child mental health, workforce mental health, substance abuse and how the pandemic has affected them explored as topics.

She said it might be a good idea to reach out to large area employers to see how they’re addressing things and if they need any help.

Spring also suggested that the council work on a survey to gauge what the public is interested in seeing in the community when it comes to mental health care and education, as sometimes the public’s perspective differs from people who work in the field.

LAC Chair Andi Daniel said she has a rough cut of one of their mental-health-awareness PSAs and she will be working on extracting audio for radio ads and editing short spots to be played in local theaters.

Daniel said they might be able to get one more interview done for the PSAs, but given how difficult it was to get testimony, that seems unlikely.

National Alliance on Mental Illness Havre President Crystal Laufer also gave a status update for her organization at the meeting.

Laufer said Peer-to-Peer classes will start April 4 from noon to 2 p.m. and will run for eight weeks, and April 6 they will hold a Family and Friends class from noon to 4 p.m.

She said they will also start holding an eight-week-long series of Family-to-Family classes next month as well.

NAMI Havre will also be holding an open house April 16 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., she said.

In May, Laufer said, they will hold In Our Own Voice and their taco crunch will be May 5.

The council also discussed altering their meeting schedule.

At first, they considered making it every other month, but many members said they liked meeting once a month and suggested making every other month more of a working meeting and holding a more traditional meeting on the alternate month.

The proposal was approved unanimously.