National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) , a grassroots group with a fair amount of government support, and a group that is deeply involved nationally in returning veterans issues and programs, is a candidate for a type of cloud based DLE that helps families and communities learn about, and cope with, a broad range of otherwise unaddressed problems.
Kris and John met with a psychiatric nurse employed by NM to help address these problems…statewide. She was among a very small number of similar that covers the whole state; her driving itinerary for any two week period covered about half of the southern portion of NN. A woefully inadequate level of staffing to deal with a problem with huge effects on many levels of the economy and community “health” and functioning.
She mentioned that NAMI was trying to develop effective materials to support local grass roots efforts and we thought: hmmm, maybe a PSA DLE project. She said they had $ to work with.
This story mentions a local chapter of NAMI being established on NMSU campus. A possible group to meet with and liaison for future projects?
Maybe “mental health” sounds obscure, there’s not a lot of public policy discussion about it as a national problem, despite the fact that tens of millions of Americans are “on” various mental health medications as a daily routine. In addition, we as a society are always experimenting with new “drugs” that affect consciousness; re-purposing pharmaceuticals, street drugs as well as herbs, and vitamins, and now legalization of Marijuana.
We somehow don’t think in depth about how this is affecting everything else that’s going on in our society and economy and civilization.
But in fact, as employers and educators and health care professionals are becoming more and more aware, the holistic “status” of the individuals and families and the community is a central variable in “moving ahead” with quality employees, good students, and functional (as opposed to dysfunctional) health care.
Mental health being, surprise surprise , as important as any variable above, if not perhaps the most important.
A growth industry of the coming decades.