 Abledon Arnair is sponsored in part by Green Mountain Support Services, empowering neighbors with disabilities to be at home in the community. Additional support for Abledon Arnair is sponsored in part by Washington County Mental Health Services, where hope and support come together. Welcome to this edition of Abledon Arnair, the one and only program that focuses on the needs, concerns, and achievements of the definitely able. I've always been your host, Lauren Siler. Thank you to our sponsors. With me today to discuss important issues of mental challenges and mental illness is NAMI. Why don't you guys introduce yourselves? So my name is Mary Cox. I'm the first vice president on the board of directors for NAMI, Vermont. My name's Laurie Emerson. I'm the executive director of NAMI, Vermont. And that's the National Alliance on Mental Illness. What are the missions and goals of NAMI? As our mission for NAMI, Vermont, we support, educate, and advocate so that all communities, families, and individuals affected by a mental illness or a mental health condition can build better lives. When we talk about mental illness, you know, a lot of people are scared, quote unquote, of people that are mentally ill, mentally challenged. Can we break down some of the myths and barriers? What are some of the myths around mental illness that you can educate our public about? Sure. You know, I think one of the myths is people feel that anyone with a mental health condition may be violent. And in actuality, they're more apt to be the victim of a crime or preyed upon by other people. So what do you mean by preyed upon by other people? So they may take advantage of them, you know, whether, like, you know, we have this great difficulty here in the state with the opioid epidemic, and, you know, get, you know, prey upon them with being able to maybe do things for them or just taking advantage of them. Well, okay, according to one of the myths here, mental illness is the result of bad parenting. People are faking it and doing it for attention. Just by what I have said, you know, can you break down those myths? Because, you know, people that are mentally challenged are not faking it. They're dealing with things. They're always, I mean, can you break that down, please? Sure, sure. You know, when we look at mental illness, there are environmental factors, there are biological factors. You know, a lot of times people may be traumatized, and because of that they may have a mental health condition. And you know, as far as the bad parenting goes, you know, we're an organization, a family organization as well as an organization that has individuals with a mental health condition involved with us. And you know, when we look at using the parents as the excuse of why people may have a mental health condition, you know, it's just not true that a lot of times there are environmental factors as well as genetic. Explain what do you mean by genetic? So it may be someone in your family may have a mental health condition, so genetically it may be within the family. But a lot of times with people, there's also, it's the result of trauma in their lives. And a lot of children are going through traumatic situations, or people may go through a traumatic situation being in war, or there could be other situations. So the Holocaust, or Vietnam, or other wars might trigger flashbacks? Right, right. So with PTSD or being involved in any kind of a traumatic situation, you know, could trigger some thoughts for people, you know, and when we look at mental illness, it's really looking at, you know, the way a person thinks, their emotions, or even some of their actions. Being infected, you're on the board. What are some of the other programs within NAMI that you guys are working with or, you know, combining situations? So we have all of the educational programs, and I'll probably let Lori speak more to that. Personally, I've been to the Family to Family program, which I think is a 12-week-long program. It was a number of years ago that I went, but it gives a lot of in-depth information about mental illness. So it's for families of people that are experiencing a mental illness or a mental health condition. Just the more that you know, as a family member, as a parent or a family member, then the more able you are to give the appropriate support to your loved one. And you guys, as NAMI, working in terms of parent, you know, parent groups, how close is the family unit with organizations like NAMI, you know, helping people deal with mental challenges? You know, we're trying to take a collaborative approach with working with other organizations to be able to share information of things that they're doing. They share information of what we're doing, because we're all unique in what we have to offer. And you know, I think the more support, the better. It's really to help people gain those coping skills to be able to know what to do in a crisis, how to communicate with your loved one. Beaking about crisis, law enforcement, big thing, okay? How is your organization working with law enforcement? Because I've seen examples on, there's been many cases in the past where people who have a badge automatically think that people with mental challenges or mental illness need to be changed or put down or different things like that. So how is, especially in Vermont, how is law enforcement working with people who are mentally challenged through your organization? Can I speak to that? Sure, go ahead. So we've been working closely with the Burlington Police Department under Chief Del Pozo. And he's making great strides in training his officers to be able to respond appropriately to a person who's in a mental health crisis. And I recently was in their Burlington Police Department Community Academy. We just graduated last Tuesday evening. But I was very impressed by all of the people that presented at how, not only professional, but also thoughtful that they were. I noticed that at the Mental Health Awareness Day in the State House, the Police Department got awards for working with your program, Daniel and Mental Health. Can you explain that piece, like what were those awards for? Sure, that's the team two training. And that's an eight hour training where law enforcement and mobile crisis teams work together on some scenario-based training. Explain scenario-based. So they give you some examples of a crisis. And how would a law enforcement agency, so the people, the participants in the training are working all together to come up with, how would we resolve this particular situation? And there are a lot of great results with law enforcement and mobile crisis teams working together to help de-escalate a situation. When you say de-escalate, what if in these teams, let's say there's a situation where nobody can really help or that people have a hard time helping the situation. Someone with a knife, someone with a gun, or something of that nature. How does that really work with your, how extensive is this training? The training really brings together that community to be able to work together to develop more skills. They also go over different laws and be able to help the officers understand about the different laws. So reminding them. So they also do get some academy training with mental health. So there's also an eight hour component there. For NAMI from Montwell, what we want to do is we want to be able to offer our lived experience. So that's really our core competency. We can go in there and we can talk about what it's like as family members or individuals with a mental health condition about the best way to really handle a situation and everybody's unique. So it's not a one size fits all, but approaching something from a calm perspective can really help to de-escalate a situation so that it is handled in a way that you get the person the right help. What are some activities NAMI has evolved in to raise awareness or advocacy or both? Can you explain some of those? Sure. A lot of times NAMI Vermont is invited to be on committees for the state or within other different organizations to be able to offer our perspective as that family experience. And NAMI Vermont was it was written in legislation that NAMI Vermont was to appoint someone to this crisis response commission. So we are looking at fatalities that result with a law enforcement situation. There's been fatalities with mental illness and law enforcement? Yes. And so we- Can you explain, well, you don't have to. Can you dive into that like why that was or? Right. So maybe there was a situation where a law enforcement was involved. And someone may have been killed. So we would look at that incident and be able to find out what could we do to help improve this particular situation from not happening again. And really looking at not just the situation itself, but really looking back at the whole scope of someone's involvement. Whether it be with the mental health system or within the community. And try to offer some suggestions or best practices of improving. Since we're talking about best practices. NAMI has, from what I understand, NAMI has facilitators. Can you explain what a facilitator is and how a facilitator would work in the situation you just described? Sure. So we train all of our volunteers. So everything we do, all of our programs are free. And we train people who have lived experience to be able to be a facilitator for our support groups, for our educational classes. And by their lived experience, they can really help connect with other people to be able to provide an educational experience. And I know that there are a lot of opportunities for more volunteers for what we do. So really looking for people that have lived experience as a family member or individual with a mental health condition. Who wants to be involved, who wants to give back to other people. And really helping that recovery process. How do you guys at NAMI help deal with stigma within mental illness? Would you like to talk about that? I think a lot of it is through our advocacy efforts. The more that we talk to people, the more that we give information to people, then all of that helps to reduce stigma. I went to, it was a TEDx talk at UVM last year. And it was really moving because one of the speakers was a student at UVM who had had a mental health condition that was on the path of recovery, was a full-time student and he gave a talk about his experience. And the audience was mostly other UVM students and it gave them exposure to the idea of a person having a mental illness and how they can be in recovery. And all of that kind of thing reduces stigma. So the more that we go around and talk to people, the more that we do that same sort of thing of sharing our experience. And they realize, that could be me, that could be a family member of mine. And people start looking at it a little bit differently. Not as something that's alien, but something that could happen to anybody. Can you, in terms of stigma, how has the media portrayed good, bad, or indifferent people with mental illness and mental challenges? Can you explain? Like hospital dramas, for example. Has that played a part, has mental challenges played a part in the media? So can I say something, I think that a lot of times that, and in the words that we use, that will perpetuate stigma. So if someone's acting in a way that we don't understand or talking to themselves or hearing voices, then people say, well, that person's crazy. And that just is not helpful. It's not accurate. It's not a helpful way to talk about things. And so changing the way that we view and talk about things helps to reduce that stigma. When it's on television and you have wide exposure or so, for example, you have someone saying, well, if it was someone with a mental illness it ended up in the news. But they might talk about that person as being evil or having evil intent. And it just isn't the case. And so there are difficulties on the hopeful side. There's a show out right now that I really enjoyed watching called New Amsterdam. That's a doctor show. So that's what made me think of it when you mentioned that, where they're taking a quite sensitive and different approach to people with mental health challenges and how they, as a hospital, respond to that and work with people towards recovery. And I love that aspect of that show that they're really trying to make a difference in the way that they're tackling this topic. History of people that are mentally ill are challenges. Because years ago, the 1800s, 1900s, even in the early 20th century, a lot of people with mental challenges were in hospitals, institutionalized, etc. Past, present, and future, how has history changed people's perception of people with mental challenges? Because, for example, Bellevue Hospital has been documentaries done. Can you explain about the history of mental illness and your organizations and combine that? In the past, they really didn't know how to treat mental illness. For them, it was just, let's just kind of push them away off to the side, because they didn't know how to treat things. And then, medicine started to come out and finding that, okay, this is a treatment that's better than the other approaches that they have taken. And that all treatments work as alternatives. Exactly. And medicine isn't just the only approach there. We really look at having many different treatment modalities to be able to help and really cover it. Can you explain what a modality is? So, for example, medicine could be one, but also having counseling. You could be attending. A yoga class, for example. Yoga class. Yoga and meditation help. A support group. Eating right, sleeping, getting the right amount of sleep. So, having all of these factors is only going to help support somebody in their recovery. And everybody is different. Everybody is unique. So, what might work for one person is not going to work for the other person. And you have to find what's right for you. And you set off, well, you set off camera that NAMI doesn't accept money. NAMI Vermont doesn't accept money from pharmaceutical companies. The pharmaceutical industry has been good, bad, and different with opiate crises. People are using medicine as candy to get a fix. What is NAMI doing, as far as like legislation, or something like that, to educate pharmaceutical companies or doctors on alternatives to medication? If I'm saying that right. If I'm making any mistakes, please. Sure, sure. So, when we respond to legislation, we really look at what are the bills that we can help educate legislators about the lived experience perspective from the families. And they've had some legislation that has come through in regards to pharmaceutical companies and maybe not accepting payment from pharmaceuticals for lunch or whatever it might be. For what? For like going to conferences and if pharmaceuticals pay for the food there. You know, I think there was some legislation about that. We don't really get involved in all of the legislation, so we're really looking at how can we improve upon some of the priorities that we really set as an organization. When you say priorities, what exactly are those? So, we have about 11 or 12 high-level priorities that we're working on. And our advocacy committee comes up with these priorities every year, and they may change depending on, you know, what's going on in society today. And, you know, it's really, you know, one of our, we don't really have a certain order of our priorities, but it's ensuring that there is funding for mental health, which we always seem to get cut, or it doesn't increase with our funding. Now that we're in this, since you say that, we're in this messy situation with our current administration with President Trump. We had a government shutdown. We're not having another one. But how does this situation deal, do you guys, does NAMI get federal funds? If there's problem with the government, how do you raise money? How does that work within NAMI's perspective? So, NAMI Vermont, we're a Vermont chapter of this national organization. And they advocate on a federal level there in Washington to be able to change federal laws. And our focus is really on the state level and really influencing legislators. And, you know, we will call our representatives in Washington, D.C., to let them know our perspective, and we encourage our membership to also call our representatives or congressmen to be able to advocate for people with a mental health condition. But, you know, Vermont is such a progressive state that they are always in favor of being able to help people. I know we're jumping around here, but in terms of suicide and problems with it, because, you know, suicide is one of the most big issues that important to get the message out about how to prevent suicide. How can someone experiencing or might be suicidal, how does NAMI work with someone that might be suicidal or are there focus groups on it or more counseling? Can you explain? So, there are people that may have suicide ideations, so they have thoughts of suicide. And it doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to act on that, but what we do is we help support them so that they can, like, attending our support groups where they can talk with other people who have that same experience. So, that's one way we do help people. And it's really just to listen to people. So, being a good listener is a boy. It is very important. And to ask those right questions and ask them, do you feel like you are going to do anything to harm yourself? And then just being there with them and talking through things can sometimes just help a person know that somebody else is there to listen to me, and that can make all the difference in the world for people. We do not, though, like, run a hotline. And so, a lot of our job is just to get the information out there. Oh, so you don't run a hotline? We do not run a hotline. Is there a reason for that? Mostly we just don't staff for that. We give referrals. You know, a lot, we have an 800 number, and people will let us know what they're going through. And if there's a certain organization with that expertise, we will refer them to those folks. But we all... Do you guys, does NAMI work directly or indirectly with Washington County Mental Health? We would definitely refer people who may call from that area. So, we try to find out, you know, where do they live and let them know about the resources in their community. And, you know, Washington County Mental Health is a designated agency. So, if they're not affiliated with them, you know, we would give them phone numbers, people to call, or other supports in the area as well. So, for instance, there is a peer group called Another Way. That's a drop in center. And that's, you know, another good support for people as well. What are some of the future goals of NAMI Vermont? So, you know, our vision would be to be able to have all the right care and the right place at the right time for people when they may experience a crisis. And if, you know, we can meet people when they need the help, more preventative approaches is really what we would aim for. Not letting something get to a crisis level that they need hospitalization. Provide the support in the community to help people. I think that that's one of our big areas, is to try to ensure that there's adequate and robust community services. And so, for example, I was on a committee this past year that looked at Vermont's system of orders of non-hospitalization. When you say non-hospitalization, what exactly does that mean? So, what happens is a person's in the hospital, and usually this occurs when a person's in the hospital for mental health condition against their will. So, that's often where this crops at. Is that against the law? No, there's statutory provisions for having somebody hospitalized if they seem to be a danger to themselves or others. And so, it's usually when a person just might be very sick or be in a psychotic episode right at the time, then they may end up going to the hospital. But what the problem is is that part of the problem is that the hospitals are very overcrowded. And so, what they'll do is they'll stay in the hospital long enough to get over the initial crisis. And then the state will tell the person, the state, through the Department of Mental Health will tell the person, we're going to release you from the hospital, but you have to comply with the treatment plan. And if you don't comply with the treatment plan, then you'll be sent back to the hospital. That's the outline of what the current legislation is. What they found in other places is that if they provide more community services, including step-down beds, so that when you're released from the hospital, you aren't just released. Okay, so what is, I apologize, it's good, but this has to do. So, crisis bed, step-down bed. Okay, so I can explain all this. I'm sorry. So, no, it's a good question. So, stepping back, a crisis bed is a bed at a facility usually not locked that's an alternative to going into a hospital where you may be in a locked ward. Okay, so it's an alternative and a lot of people love that idea that they have that alternative available because it gives them a choice about if they can go to some place where they have support, they have people that are on staff at a crisis bed facility. So, like for example, in Chinning County, they have assist, which is, I think there's eight beds or something at assist, six or eight beds. And there's staff 24-7 and people can go there if they're having a mental health crisis, but they're not locked in. And so, it's just a better thing all around to be able to do things in a voluntary way. A step-down bed is, if you're, have had a psychotic episode, for example, and you're in the hospital, the hospital can only keep you for a short somewhat limited period of time. But you're like on a 72-hour hold or something? Something like that, or even if they admit you into a ward and you have a bed and you might be there for two weeks, for example. Well, the main part of the crisis may be over, but you're not really ready to return to your job, or you're not really ready to return to your parents' home or your family home. Oftentimes, it's useful to have a transition period where you're able to think about your own recovery, you're able to take baby steps, and then with eventual transition back into the community. And so, having those step-down beds is very crucial, but we have a lack of step-down beds in Vermont. And so, what frequently happens is a person will be discharged from the hospital and then go directly back to their parents' house, but then frequently parents are not able to properly support a person who's still having mental health symptoms. And so, it's a little bit scary for the parents because they would like to be supportive, but they just don't know how. So, they're frustrated. The person may need a little bit more support than what they're able to get from their parents, and so that's frustrating for them. And so, we're advocating right now to, for example, to put more money into community mental health services so that we can provide more in the way of step-down beds, respite, step-down beds, crisis beds, all the different sorts of supports that people might need in dealing with a mental health crisis. So, what is the difference between mental illness and mental condition? Is there a difference? So, when you think of mental illness, it's the severity of the illness. And everybody is different. Some people may need hospitalization, like Mary talked about. Other people may just need a respite crisis bed. Can you explain what a respite is? So, respite would be like at the assist program at a crisis bed. So, it's only for maybe a couple days. It could be a week or so. But just to get a little bit more support because you feel like, you know, your symptoms may be escalating. And so, you know, with mental illness, you know, a lot of people too, you know, want to use the term mental health condition. As a matter of fact, we changed our mission statement recently to before it was just working with mental illness. But it's also mental health challenges because you may have anxiety that is something that may go away in a couple weeks. Other people may need to manage symptoms for quite a long time. Can you talk about your involvement with, let's go back to media because I know that NAMI not too long ago did a public service announcement, which we're going to show as well. What was that about? And why did you guys go to the public service announcement route to educate people? Yeah, that's exactly what it was. It's to educate the public about a mental health condition and let them know about the prevalence, you know, one in five people may be affected by a mental health condition in their lifetime. And we had volunteers do the public service announcement. So these are all people that have been working with us. Why don't we do this? Why don't we take a look at NAMI's public service announcement campaign? Let's take a look at this. One in five Vermonters experience a mental health condition each year. If you need help, the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Vermont is here for you. Our nonprofit organization offers free support groups and programs to educate and encourage those in need of care. NAMI Vermont gave me the support that I needed to change my life. I don't know where I would be without that hope. For more information on our free programs, go to our website at namivt.org. Well, is there any last minute things that you want to talk about about NAMI's mission before we end? You know, one thing that I wanted to mention that, you know, one of the myths of mental illness is that it's something that can be managed. There is recovery. There is hope for people. People can get back to their lives and working and doing what they enjoy doing in their lives. So, you know, letting people know that hope and recovery is possible. For more information on NAMI's programs in Vermont, can you tell us the number and where people can reach you on the website? They can find our website at namivt.org. That's www.namivt.org. Yes. Is there a number? Yeah, so we have an 800 line, 800-639-6480. Can you repeat that one more time, please? Sure. 800-639-6480. Again, we'd like to thank you for joining us on this edition of Abledon Air. This puts an end to this edition of Abledon Air. Arlene is off today. Thank you to our sponsors and we'll see you next time for another edition of Abledon Air. Abledon Air is sponsored in part by Green Mountain Support Services, Empowering Neighbors with Disabilities to Be at Home in the Community. Additional support for Abledon Air is sponsored in part by Washington County Mental Health Services, where hope and support come together.