Mental Health Awareness Month: Pathways to Wellness

Have you noticed the signs of Mental Health Awareness Month? Have you seen green ribbons on your colleagues' lapels in honor of this national celebration?
If you haven't already, please look for media attention, events and advocacy for screening, prevention, and treatment. Please observe the following key messages, about wellness from Mental Health America: 

• Wellness is essential to living a full and productive life. 
• Wellness involves a set of skills and strategies that prevent the onset or shorten the duration of illness and promote recovery and well-being. 
• Wellness is more than an absence of disease. It involves complete general, mental and social well-being. And mental health is an essential component of overall health and well-being.
• Just as we check our blood pressure and get cancer screenings, it's a good idea to take periodic reading of our emotional well-being.
• Using strategies that promote resiliency and strengthen mental health and prevent mental health and substance use conditions lead to improved general health and a healthier society: greater academic achievement by our children, a more productive economy, and families that stay together.

Please download the toolkit, including media materials, fact sheets and more, so you can spread the word in your community.
 

Lori Howell regularly contributes articles about juvenile justice reform and adolescent substance abuse treatment to ReclaimingFutures.org. She received a bachelor’s degree in psychology with a minor in French from Seattle University. Lori works as a senior account director at Prichard Communications.