Welcome to iHeartRadio Communities, a public affairs special focusing on the biggest issues impacting you. This week, here's Ryan Gorman. Thanks so much for joining us here on iHeartRadio Communities. I'm Ryan Gorman, and we have a few very important conversations lined up for you. May is Mental Health Awareness Months, so that's the topic we'll be focusing on for this show, and just a bit we'll check in with the jed Foundation, a nonprofit organization working to protect emotional
health and prevent suicide among our nation's teens and young adults. But right now, to get things started, let me bring in Jessica Edwards, chief development officer at the National Alliance on Mental Illness. You can learn more about this organization at NAMI dot org. That's NAMI dot org. Jessica, thank you so much for coming on the show, and let's begin with an overview of how NAMI came about and the type of work you're focused on. Absolutely,
thank you so much for this opportunity. So NAMI is the largest grassroots mental health organization in the country. We were started in nineteen seventy nine by a group of families gathered around a kitchen table who wanted more for their family members
and loved ones who were experiencing mental health conditions and mental illnesses. So we are now at the national Office and we have six hundred affiliates and forty nine state organizations nationwide, so we're pretty much in every community across the country. Our mission is to provide advocacy, education, support, and public awareness so everyone with a mental health condition can thrive and live their most opportune life.
And we want to ensure that we provide support for those individuals and families living with mental health conditions so that they can advocate and raise awareness and reduce the stigma and make sure that they have all of the help and hope that they need. Let me ask you a very basic, but I think important question. When we hear mental illness, what exactly does that include? Yeah, absolutely, it's a great question. So it really depends on the audience and
who you're speaking with. Some people prefer mental health condition or mental health it sounds a little bit less scary and perhaps meets people more of where they are, and then others prefer the term mental illness. Serious mental illness is a term that gets tossed around as well. So we meet people where they are, and we don't see the diagnosis, we see the person. So people
may come to NAMI if they're experiencing anxiety or depression ADHD OCD. They also may come to NOAME if they're experiencing schizophrenia, psychosis, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder. So NAMI really focuses on meeting the individual where they are on their mental health journey and ensuring that they have the resources and access to help that they need to find care, to find resources, and to ensure that
they know that they're not alone. We want to make sure that we're lowering barriers of stigma, and sometimes the way in which we talk about mental health conditions can can help lower that stigma barrier. If we were to take a thirty thousand foot view look at the issue of mental illness here in this country,
how big of a problem are we talking about mental health conditions? Are One in five US adults experience a mental health condition each year, one in twenty US adults experience a serious mental illness each year, and the average delay between onset of symptoms and treatment is eleven years. So this is a pretty pervasive problem in the United States. I'm Ryan Gorman with Jessic Edwards, chief Development Officer at the National Alliance on Mental Illness. You can learn more at
NAMI dot org. That's NAMI dot org. She's with me for Mental Health Awareness Month. On the topic of awareness itself of all these different conditions. How much progress have we made in recent years as your organization has been on the forefront of all of that. Yeah, so we've really come a long
way. The pandemic was so challenging for so many reasons. But if there was a bright spot, and that is a really big if, it would be that people felt unified through this traumatic experience of lockdown and the uncertainty that surrounded COVID and health and all that was to come with that. And I think that it really helped people align on that we all have mental health and
we all have a various degree of mental health challenges. So it really helped align everyone and make sure that people realize that we're all in this together. It was less of than us versus them. So that was a bright spot of the pandemic, was just making sure that we all are kind of aware of our mental health in that way. But it not me As I mentioned, we've been doing this for forty five years, and we've been running programs
that are peer led family to family classes, support groups. Other organizations across the country. Not ME organizations across the country offer these in their communities, and so this is not something new for n ME, But I think as a American society, we've really made a lot of progress in the last couple of years. More people are talking about it, even just opportunities like this, the opportunity that you've had me on your show to discuss Mental Health Awareness
Month, it's incredible that wouldn't have happened probably a decade ago. I would say, what about treatments and strategies to address these different mental health issues? How much progress have we made on all of that. Yeah, so it really there's always room for advancement in euroscience treatment and research, but there's definitely a lot of resources out there and treatments available for folks. There's a lot of information around that. On our website not me dot org you can check
out all sorts of medications and resources and treatments and therapies. I would also say that it's never one size fits all, so people need to find the kind of care continuum support that works for them. That can include physical exercise, that can include yoga, that can include getting outside, talking to a therapist, medication therapy, animals, art therapy. So it really is up to each individual person to find what works for them for their wellness journey.
Just like we would talk about a physical health condition, right, we put a lot of focus into what we put into our bodies, how we move our body, and the same goes for mental health. So it's really a customized approach for each person on their wellness journey. I want to ask you
about the launch of the nine eight eight Crisis hotline. Some of the conversations I've had with different organizations working on this issue, they've told me that it's been nothing short of a game change or just that simplified number and promoting it, getting the word out about it. It really has helped. Is that what you're seeing at NAMI absolutely such a game changer. A mental health crisis
deserves a mental health response. SONAMI was a huge advocate for ensuring that nine eight eight got launched, and we are so grateful that that is a resource. It is a twenty four to seven free confidential support for people stress and what an incredible crisis resource that it is that was so needed across the country. So yes, we were huge advocates for that, very excited that it
is in place. Still work to be done as we continue to build it out and raise awareness around it. So thank you for mentioning that such a great point. I'm Ryan Gorman, joined by Jessica Edwards, Chief Development Officer at the National Alliance on Mental Illness. You can learn more about the work they do and support that work at NAMI dot org. That's NAMI dot org. May is Mental Health Awareness Month in Jessica, what is your organization doing
during the course of May to honor that designation? Absolutely, so, we're always encouraging people to share their story. That's one of the biggest ways to help remove the stigma is for people to know that they are not alone. And so hearing stories of either celebrities or famous people or people that you see
in the media or even in your community or in your personal life. When you hear someone else sharing their story, that helps that individual who's on the receiving end know that they're not alone and that you're a safe place to share and to go to and talk about. So that's something that we drill into our communities all the time is just to share your story and to feel empowered in that. For May our theme this year is take a Moment for mental
Health. So we are encouraging people to cultivate empathy and understanding by fostering open dialogues and urging people to share their moments of mental health. So taking a pause, taking a break, taking a moment for your mental health and sharing what that means to you, and that can be highlighting your story or also sharing ways that you stay well, prioritizing your mental health care, tips and tricks, anything that you can do to just take that beat, take that
moment to share your mental health story and journey. One part of this mental health issue that we're experiencing in our country right now that's gotten a lot of attention recently the mental health among younger people. What have you been seeing in terms of the data on all of that and what have you been doing about that? Over at Nomie absolutely such a great point. We know that early
intervention is one of the keys to better outcomes. So the sooner that somebody seeks care and seeks help and starts to identify that they may be experience and experiencing a mental health condition, the better likelihood that they're going to get care and have that better outcome. We also know that for adolescence, which is ages twelve to seventeen, one in six experienced a major depressive episode in the last year, and one in three young adults, which is aged eighteen to
twenty five, has experienced a mental health condition. So the sooner on that journey we can find an intervention, find care, find coping mechanisms, find tools to stay well, the higher likelihood the outcome is. I will also say, on a really positive note, I'm finding and Weetnami are finding at the younger generation is so much more likely to talk about their mental health.
We're seeing them talk about it at work, talk about it at school, We'll talk about it on social media and in the media and in their communities. And I think that that's really excellent in helping to normalize the conversation around mental health, and that's the good for all of us across society certainly, And I think that the younger generation is really taking a leadership role in that,
which is exciting to see. There's another group that you highlight on your website again, NAMI dot org that sometimes I think gets overlooked when it comes to mental health issues frontline professionals, and this really came to light during the pandemic, right absolutely, Yes, taking care of the caregivers is something that has been in nami's core DNA since we were founded, and during the pandemic, we really wanted to take that authentic value and make sure we were taking
care of the people that were taking care of us. So we really focused on ensuring that all of the frontline workers and responders and caregivers had resources available to them during that very critical, frankly crisis time because the work that they were doing was so essential for our physical well but had a really incredible emotional
wellbeing and mental health component and told to it as well. Absolutely, I'm Ryan Gorman, joined by Jessica Edwards, chief Development Officer at the National Alliance on Mental Illness. You can learn more at NAMI dot org. That's NAMI dot org. Jessica's with me for Mental Health Awareness Month. Your organizations at the forefront of education and information on all things mental illness. Can you talk about what it is you provide to so many different organizations across the country.
Absolutely, so all of nami's programs, classes and support groups and initiatives are free. So we are a nonprofit. We are very grateful to all of our donors and supporters and corporate sponsors and foundation supporters. Certainly all of their support helps us offer all of these peer led free programs across the country. A couple of highlights are our Community Health Equity Alliance, which prioritizes can unity
informed solutions for the Black African ancestry community. That's a recent initiative. We also have programs like NOMMI Family to Family that I mentioned, which is a family education program. We also have NOMI Basics, which is a program for parents of young children. We have several resources for youth and young adults and
for parents as well to help navigate their young person's journey. We also have a helpline that is one eight hundred nine to fifty NAMI or you can text helpline to six' two six four zero And if you're experiencing a mental health crisis, you can always call our text nine eight eight twenty four seven. As we talked about earlier, So how can everyone get involved and support the work you're doing. Yeah, we have over one hundred Nommy walks across the
country. There's several here coming up in May and then more in the fall. So I would encourage you to find your local NAMI, which can be found easily from our homepage www dot nom dot org as you mentioned, and find your local NAMI and your community to get involved that way, and then if you're interested in inolved, getting involved at the national level, sharing your story, writing a blog, sharing the content on social media, taking a
mental health moment, getting engaged in some of our campaigns. All of that helps propel the movement so that everyone knows that they are not alone and that NAM is a resource for them. Final question for you, and I think this is something everyone listening can benefit from. What are some best practices, some tips that you offer at NAMI for all of us to better improve our
mental health. Absolutely they might sound basic, but I think it's so important to get grounded when you're talking about mental health and mental health conditions and mental illness, to remember to treat your mental health and your brain the same way you treat your physical health. So going for a walk if that's accessible to you, getting outside if that's accessible to you, talking to a friend,
talking to a therapist. We take such good care of our physical bodies, we must ensure that we're taking care of our mental health in the same way. Our brain is our most trusted asset in such an important part of our overall health. So finding ways for you to feel mentally and physically well, it's going to be key. Jessica Edwards, chief Development officer at the National
Alliance on Mental Illness, with us for Mental Health Awareness Month. You can learn more and support all the work this organization is doing at NAMI dot org. That's NAMI dot org. Jessica, thank you so much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you. All right. I'm Ryan Gorman here on iHeartRadio Communities and continuing now with our Mental Health Awareness Month
special, I want to bring in yet another organization focused on this. I'm joined now by doctor Michelle Mullen, Senior Vice president and Chief Design and Impact Officer for the JED Foundation. You can learn more about all the work they do at Jedfoundation dot org. Doctor Mullen, thank you so much for taking a few minutes to come on the show. And let's start with the background on how this organization came about. And the work that you do well,
Ryan, thanks for having me. I appreciate being here. So the JET Foundation was created because of a family's loss of their son, and his name was Jed and he died by suicide. And the Sato family decided to use their grief to be able to create real change, and in their discussions of how do you prevent future dust, the college students university president said, tell me how to do this, and I will do everything out of my power to be able to protect our students. And that's how the JET Foundation had
started. So, now that we're in Mental Health Awareness Month, how much has awareness of mental health issues grown in recent years? It seems like by a tremendous amount. And what role do you feel your organization, the Jed Foundation plays in helping to raise that awareness. The JET Foundation is a national non profit that protects emotional health and prevents suicide for teens and young adults.
And we have seen real changes how colleges see mental health on campus. So I've been around a long time and when I first started doing research about college student mental health, we used to hear from college campuses all the time. We don't have mental health issues on campus and that is rarely a comments I ever hear. Now colleges are acutely aware that their students have growing challenges and
are much more aware of mental health than in the past. So because people are much more likely to talk about mental health, and you know, these earlier generations are open to having conversations, there is increased collaboration and problem solving. And what our report has found our work here as a part of JET Campus is that implementing a comprehensive approach really helps to have good conversations to be able to identify this is a campus wide issue and everyone could be a part
of the solution. I want to get to a brand new report that your organization released, a decade of Improving College Mental Health Systems JET Campus Impact Report. Give us the background on this report, what you were looking to find, and some of the highlights from these findings. So I'll first start by
describing JET Campus. JET Campus is a four year program that partners with schools to help guide and collaborate around what are the programs, the policies, the systems, the culture and campus to be able to leverage what they're already doing and also build additional components to enhance mental health substances use and suicide prevention.
We provide technical assistance and help partner with the school through those four years, and so this report is really a culmination of ten years of work that we've done nationwide. It represents over one hundred thousand students, and you know, in this report, we saw sweeping improvements across the board. So depression and anxiety had improved for students for part of ject campuses. They were more aware
of mental health resources. And one thing that we saw that was really staggering and it makes good sense, is that you know, improved these students also saw improved graduation and retention rates. We saw a twenty five percent reduction in suicide attempts. So the comprehensive approach that we have been implementing over the last decade not only saw these really an important clinical like these symptoms reduction, but
also improvements in graduation, retention and reductions in suicide. We're joined by doctor Michelle Mullen, Senior Vice President and Chief Design and Impact Officer for the JED Foundation. You can learn more and support the work they're doing at jedfoundation dot org. Some of those numbers they seem to be at odds with what we're
hearing more generally about the mental health of young adults across the country. So that seems to just indicate further how successful the JED campus program has been. Right. You know, it's interesting when we think about what college students are
struggling with. You know, they are really crossing from you know, being earlier young adults through this transitional adulthood, and so they are managing and competing demands of college campuses, you know, the competition balancing social life and academics. They're also struggling with things that some of us older folks have never had to think about before, like mass shootings on campus. You know, they
have a lot of stressors. But we also know that young people are incredibly resilient, and so knowing that there are real steps that universities and colleges can take to improve mental health on campus by making it a campus wide effort shows real promise that a culture itself can both reduce depression and anxiety, increase help seeking, and improve graduation and retention. So when people feel like they belong, you know, we have all these other great outcomes associated with that.
Let alone, the significant and real reduction in suicide, it's twenty five percent. You know, as we're looking at some of the different issues that students attending our nation's colleges and universities are facing these days, I'm wondering how much social media looms over all of that. Back when we were going to school, at least when I was going to school, it was first starting to roll out, but it certainly wasn't anywhere near the level that it is today
and didn't impact our lives like it does today. You know, social media is this double edged sword. For some it is the great connector, and for others it's a great stressor, you know, that competition, that the constant comparison, and for others they feel real belonging and connecting with groups that they don't have around them and being able to connect with other people that look
more like them or identify with you know, how they identify. So it is very complicated kind of maze to navigate us when is it harmful, when is it helpful? And you know, at JED, we try our best to be able to educate young people, parents and caregivers and universities systems on some of the recommendations that could be helpful in minimizing threat and risk and increasing
the benefits of connection and belonging. I'd like to dive a little bit deeper into this program that again is showing tremendous results, especially when you compare it to some of the other numbers we're seeing when it comes to the mental health of young adults across this country. So can you break down how JED Campus works and some of the parts of the program that seem to make it most
effective. So JED Campus, as I had said, is a four year program that works directly with schools, leaderships, staff, faculty and creates an interdisciplinary approach to solve the problems on campus. Oftentimes, when we think about mental health, we really focus on what is counseling doing counseling office do, But rather this is a campus wide approach of like how can we all help, how can we promote social connectedness, how can we all identify students at
risk? How can we help increase help seeking behaviors. So when we think about JED Campus, it's really a process of layering the community as a response. So there are certain things that the campus does themselves, like ensure that there is mental health and substancency services that students can connect to those rapidly that
there's not long way. Times we provide recommendations related to how to manage crisis on campus, how to prevent those things from happening, you know, thinking about how do we ensure that students are safe on campus, But a lot of our work focuses on how do we develop the life skills that students need to be able to navigate these challenges over their lifetime, So conflicts of resolution, managing relationships, even things like time and task management, so people are
able to manage their stress and the demands of their family and friends and work in school. So when we start to think about the JET Campus as a program, it is really across the entire community and through that students feel more connected, they're more aware. They have reported in ours in our data that you know, they have less depression last anxiety. So we're seeing real improvements by attending to the culture on campus. What has the response been like from
administrators and leaders on campuses that have participated in the JET Campus program. You know, colleges are acutely aware that there are real needs for college students. Most of our college students have been through the pandemic, you know, there was real destructions in their development and their you know process through high school. And so they feel really relieved, right that there's expert guidance out there that
we provide evidence based recommendations and data informed decisions. We partner with them to be able to identify, what are the things that you have, what are the things that are missing? Are there funding mechanisms that we can go after to improve something? Is there, you know, a curriculum that you can implement, Is there a campaign that you can put into place that you know increases students' awareness of you know, counseling on campus or the role of the
RA and dorms. And so resoundingly, college campuses feel as if someone can provide them that guidance that they needed to take real action at these pieces that seem to be missing. Schools are doing a lot and so being able to leverage what they already have, and sometimes it's adding a little bit. Sometimes
it's adding a policy. You know, sometimes it's easy, as like creating a triage system by identifying who needs what services went So colleges have been very or intentionally supported by JED campus advisors and what you need and how do we fit that need with expert, evidence based interventions and recommendations. May is Mental Health Awareness Month. I'm Ryan Gorman and joining me right now, I have doctor Michelle Mullen, Senior Vice president and Chief Design and Impact Officer for the
JED Foundation. You can learn more at jedfoundation dot org. So, when we're talking about this JED campus for students, parents, educators who might be interested in implementing something like this on their campus, what would be your suggestion for going about doing that? Well, of course for young adults that I would say is you know you are not alone. If you're struggling to reach
out for help, people want to help. I think the other thing for young adults is if one on campus, see if your campus is implementing a comprehensive approach. You know, our data shows that a comprehensive approach improves mental health across campus for parents and caregivers, JED recommends having open conversations about mental health with your students. Parents and caregivers should check out a report also see
if their student school is implementing a comprehensive approach. And I think lastly, for what colleges can do. Our evaluation shows real promising results that there are concrete steps that results and improve mental health and suicide prevention on campus. And I think what JED would most recommend is don't wait. Prevention is key. Don't wait for something to happen on campus that you then have to attend to, but rather cut the services, the policies, the practice in place so
that we can prevent as much as possible. And then finally, what can everyone do to support the work you're doing at the JED Foundation. Well, I think generally speaking, we want to increase health seeking. JED wants people to feel comfortable reaching out for help and for people being able to help people who need help. So, you know, promoting connectiveness, identifying people who are at risk increase health seeking and help giving behaviors. You may not know
what to do, but getting to connect someone connected. So what we've seen in our data for college campuses and universities is a comprehensive approach works to prevent suicide and it improves mental health. So look to your colleges and universities to see are they implementing a comprehensive approach to be able to really improve these outcomes. For these students or Mental Health Awareness Month. Doctor Michelle Mullen, Senior
Vice president and Chief Design and Impact Officer for the JED Foundation again. You can learn more and support the work they do at Jedfoundation dot org. Doctor Mullen, I want to thank you so much for the work you organization is doing and for taking time to come on the show. We really appreciate it. Well, thank you for having me. All right, and that's going to do it for this edition of iHeartRadio Communities. As we wrap things up on one, offer a big thanks to all of our guests and of course
to all of you for listening. I'm your host, Ryan Gorman. We'll talk to you again real soon.