Concerned about how nearly a year of forced physical separation is impacting the mental health of the state’s citizens, a group of experts at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) hatched a plan: #StayConnectedMN, a public health campaign providing a monthlong set of mental-health-promotion templates that employers and community leaders can use to deliver helpful, timely messages encouraging behaviors that enhance the mental health of their employees and community members.
[image_caption]Anna Lynn[/image_caption]
“We were all very concerned about the impact that COVID has had on everyone’s mental well-being and mental health in general,” Lynn said. While she and her colleagues cannot make the virus go away any faster, they realized that they did have access to information that could help exhausted community members make it through what feels like a punishingly long homestretch.
“We know about the tools that are out there,” she said. “We wanted to help people and communities use some of them now, when we really need it.”
Tanya Carter, MDH suicide prevention supervisor, explained that #StayConnectedMN was “a collaborative effort. We were hearing from our community partners that they were looking for tools and resources to use to share with their customers, their employees. We wanted to pull together some really good ideas that they can share about what they can do to boost their mental health and well-being.”
As the virus took hold in the state, MDH’s public health professionals in particular were spread thin, Lynn said, as they worked to help manage their clients’ mounting mental health concerns while caring for their own well-being.
[image_caption]Tanya Carter[/image_caption]
“We were sharing these messages on our intranet,” she explained. When their colleagues told them that the information they’d compiled was helpful, Lynn, Carter and the rest of their team started talking about ways to share it with a larger audience.
“We started to ask ourselves,” Lynn said, “‘How can we package these ideas for other people so they don’t have to come up with this themselves?’”
Stephanie Anderson, communications coordinator in MDH’s injury and violence prevention section, explained that she, Carter and Lynn came up with the idea of #StayConnectedMN as a way to spread messages about mental health promotion to the largest audience possible.
“It is a large-scale communications campaign,” she said. “It’s focused on the importance of staying connected to each other — while staying physically apart, of course.”
By bringing their message to a diverse statewide audience, Lynn said program creators hope that they will further normalize the idea that caring for your mental health is as important as caring for your physical health.
“We all know about some of the things we can do to improve or maintain our physical health,” Lynn said, “but do we all know the things we can do to improve or maintain our mental health? We want users to use this as a guide for enhancing mental health in trying times.”
How StayConnected works
The campaign’s creators like to think of #StayConnectedMN as a toolkit that provides mental health information and messaging that can be used to promote tools for surviving tough times.
“It’s meant to be used in workplaces so the messages can be rolled out in an email at the beginning of the week to share with employees,” Carter explained. The concept is that an employer or community leader could pick up the pre-created messages and then tailor them to meet the needs of their workplace or community.
“We have created messaging for four weeks,” Carter said. “Each week has a theme. The first week is, ‘Connect with yourself.’ The second week is, ‘Connect with others.’ The third week is, ‘Create a healthy environment.” The fourth week is, ‘How to find help and support.’”
When she and her colleagues were planning the campaign, the original idea was that it would be specifically designed for employers, Lynn said, but they soon realized that these messages could be delivered to members of any group or organization.
“It really could work for anybody. This could also be used in a religious congregation or a community group. If you have an audience of any size, you can take these messages and share them.”
The #StayConnecedMN toolkit is available for free on the MDH website.
“People can use these messages in group emails or post them online in social media,” Lynn said. She and her colleagues also thought, she continued, that users might want to “get creative and use the theme of the week and the messages to guide other interactions, say if they have a weekly meeting with their senior mentors or something, this could be a perfect topic. They could say, ‘Here are some key messages you could bring to your team.’”
Because they want their campaign to reach as many Minnesotans as possible, #StayConnectedMN’s creators encourage users to take the messages and make them their own.
“We recognize that other people have creative ideas,” Lynn said. “They can add information to the mix. They can craft the message to fit their audience. For the most part, the messages are relevant to adults and older youth, but other than that, they are fairly applicable across all populations.”
The department is also working on other ways to further spread the campaign’s message, Lynn added. “We are getting these messages translated into Hmong, Somali, Spanish and Karen.”
Leading up to the campaign’s official Feb. 1 launch, in late January the department offered a webinar for organizations and individuals interested in hearing more about how to make the campaign work for specific audiences.
Around 275 people attended the webinar, with attendees representing a range of organizations and professions, including school districts, nonprofits, mental health providers, public health workers, rehabilitation counselors, nurses and human services organizations.
Anderson said that the campaign was also designed with easy ways to include messaging on social media. “We’re producing three to five social media posts per week that can be picked up and used by anyone who’s interested,” she said.
And the campaign’s hashtag should help build momentum and interest.
“That way other organizations and individuals can build off of each other,” Anderson said. “That will help keep the conversation going.”
Clear connection
Feelings of isolation and loneliness aren’t just hard on our mental health. They can also impact a person’s physical well-being.
Rates of isolation were already on the increase when the pandemic hit, forcing even more people to retreat inside and stay away from others. Research, including a 2020 study released by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, reported that one third of adults age 45 and older feel lonely, and that one fourth of adults age 65 and older are considered to be socially isolated.
Social isolation can be a health risk, Lynn said.
“There is evidence that loneliness and isolation can have an even more negative impact on our life expectancy than smoking and substance abuse.”
It’s not just older adults who are experiencing social isolation, Lynn added: “Right now that’s happening across the whole population.” That’s why she and her colleagues at MDH felt it was essential to create #StayConnectedMN.
“Social isolation can be a downward spiral, a cyclical process. We get in our heads. We start to think negative thoughts and we don’t have an outlet to connect with people. The more isolated we are the less likely we are, even if we are lonely, to reach out. There is a stigma against loneliness. That’s part of the cycle.”
Though they understand that public health campaigns like #StayConnectedMN can’t be a cure-all for what ails us, Carter, Lynn and Anderson hope that for some people, at least the information they include will help break the cycle of negativity that’s been enveloping our world.
“My sense is that we have recognized more clearly than before the value of our connections with others,” Lynn said. “These tips and messages we’re providing will be relevant to today and what we are all going through collectively. In this unusual, trying time, we all have to be a bit more active and intentional about our mental well-being.”
Months ago in the early days of the pandemic, the Governor’s office started communicating about how to respond to the pandemic. It heavily relied on precautions from the CDC – which were reasonable good in suggesting what people could do to avoid getting and spreading the disease. What was totally missing was any acknowledge of the massive mental health toll that would occur – starting immediately as people spending a lot more time away from those outside their immediately family. It is good that this initiative is happening now, but it is long overdue.
What I found interesting was how the article was from Mt. Olympus. No connection to the personal stories of struggles people have been experiencing. As many of us live in isolation, we do not necessarily see as we normally might the level of pain others are dealing with. For example, data tell us that Americans are drinking a lot more when it has been suggested that men and women should limit themselves to one drink a day. We know how dangerous self-medication is. What level of psychological problems will we face when people reemerge? We need thought and investment real investments in mental health that are now not being made.
Joel Stegner’s observation about drinking alcohol is important. Alcohol is a depressant. It also dried us out. The stresses and situational depression that come from isolation is only worsened by drinking alcohol, a type of beverage which I do not drink as I have chronic kidney disorder with only 26% of my kidney function working on my behalf. I drink a lot of water. Doctors encourage us to drink a gallon of water each day, which is simple if we refill our glasses every hour or two. Water leads us to greater comfort than alcohol, and I drink water with my meals when I go to bars and restaurants, as well as at home.
I greatly appreciate Andy Steiner’s continuing work on bringing to the public and readers stories about mental health. It was formerly a taboo subject and stigmatized. The really great thing about the pandemic is that journalists around the country are taking this aspect of our humanity seriously and talking about it in a thoughtful and responsible fashion, as has happened to cancer as a topic of conversation from the 1970’s to the 1980’s and beyond, when cancer was not talked about — especially breast cancer, which was off limits to men in our family in the 1970’s.
Times and enlightenment change cultures. While many lament the isolation brought about by Covid-19, for which I will test on Tuesday, February 9, as I am symptomatic (but still have the ability to taste things and sense odors, but no fever), I revel in the insights which are being shared about mental health conditions brought about by the realities we are facing in this current pandemic, as I was subject to beatings, harassment, and malfeasance by police and educational authorities in high school and college in the 1980’s when those of us who were up front about our diagnoses were vilified.
The considerate work which Ms. Steiner, the Minnesota Department of Health, and both psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers — who serve people from very poor households to very wealthy households — is important. They help us find comfort and peace. They help us find opportunities to learn ways of creating happier (not gleeful, but contented and useful) regards for our lives.
I encourage people to check in with mental health care providers. These days, conversations are done over the telephone and Internet video conferencing. For those with psychiatric conditions such as clinical depression and bipolar depression, going into clinic and hospital labs takes less than five minutes for a blood draw — from the time we sit down, to the time the lab representative prepares and finally draws blood through a minimally discomforting prick to our inner arm — and is helpful in the process of helping us develop a sense for how our body is working with nutrients which provide us with a comfortable experience in life. I no longer have apprehensions about blood draws, which is not needed for most people, but instead rank the employee on their ability to create a painless draw. I never have problems with this.
Much has occurred over the past forty years, in terms of methods and skills-development for professionals, who become friends, and who assist in helping with depression and anxiety. As well, Andy’s article aptly points our that staying connected to people via telephone and Internet is vital to good personal care and enjoyment of life.
Thanks again for another fine article on mental health — the newest frontier in bringing people comfort, a sense of belonging in society, and greater creativity and productivity.
This is being used for a variety of mental health issues. Attorneys and providers I ask you to act. Current national device suit proving brain injuries in the CA courts. Class action lawsuit in England as well now. No FDA testing for safety or effectiveness. No pre-market approval of devices ever done. This involves billions annually in the US alone. This is being done at leading facilities such as Mayo, John Hopkins, HMO Kaiser Permanente etc. Standard is being met around the procedure, but standards are highly fallible with the material risk of brain injuries still missing in consent. Long-term possible risks of CTE and ALS. Damages being found on testing and being tied to this procedure in notes. Some now being entered into TBI programs. This can payout as straight medical malpractice over psychiatric medical malpractice that does not pay-out as well. General anesthesia and day surgery unit are used for the procedure. See other videos as well on this channel (ds electroshock). This link is addressing attorneys and providers. https://youtu.be/kd62VgS_qjE. Providers of all types please intervene and advocate on behalf of patients around the use of electroshock. Most are aware of this mechanism of trauma, inducing TBI at baseline. I am a former trauma nurse and previous owner of ectjustice.com. That site is now owned by the law firms participating in the national device suit. Please expose on social media when you learn the truth so others are made aware. Dr. Bennet Omalu famous for findings of CTE in the NFL is now on record stating the same is anticipated in ECT patients.