Current Trends and Influences on Mental Health in Our Community

Guest Blogger: Marisa Cleveland (LC ’22), co-author of There Is No Box

On Monday, October 24th, the Leadership Collier Foundation Alumni Association hosted the “Current Trends and Influences on Mental Health in Our Community” leadership luncheon at Avow.

While it was disheartening to listen to Scott Burgess (LC ‘15), CEO of David Lawrence Center and Dr. Paul Simione, VP & Chief Medical Executive of Behavioral Health at Lee Health provide a summation of the current mental health statistics, as noted in the registration post, I believe attendees — at minimum, this attendee — left with a better understanding of how they can affect change in the future of mental health care.

If it’s true that there are “two suicides for every one homicide,” then how does Scott still offer a “tremendous amount of hope”? Because mental health issues are treatable issues, and “as a community, we can ban together and bring those solutions to… every individual who needs these services.”

Cari Jones, LC ‘22, makes the valid point that we are a room full of leaders, and that means, as leaders, it is up to us to figure out how to best position ourselves to help those who are struggling and who might not tell us.

So, what does it really mean to create a trauma-informed organization, and how do we align our organizations with this ideology?

Again, thanks to Cari, some members of my class (LC ‘22) have participated in the mental health first aid training offered through David Lawrence. I took the virtual training, and it was so much better than other virtual training sessions I’ve attended. But now that I’ve attended this lunch and listened more purposely to the state of the mental health in our community, I’ve also recommended this training to my own organization, as a first step toward creating a trauma-informed organization that can hopefully be a small step in creating a community focused on compassionate communication where everyone feels like a stakeholder in the betterment of the human condition.

Hope to see you at the next LCF lunch!

By Red Gamso | Oct 31, 2022 | Guest Blog