Mentally Healthy Nation

The words we use have power and can, even unintentionally, contribute to the stigma associated with mental illness. To address this, the Well Beings Campaign developed the Mental Health Language Guide to equip adults, regardless of their experience, with person-first language tools for discussing mental health concerns with youth.

On this episode, Alita McCalmon, project lead for the Mental Health Language Guide and Senior Manager of National Education for WETA Television, talks to us about the guide and shares how our language can help create safe spaces for youth, our LGBTQIA community members, folks with disabilities, people with mental health conditions, and more.

Resources for this episode:

• Well Beings Mental Health Language Guide
• Hiding in Plain Sight: Youth Mental Illness trailer
• Our Turn to Talk

Check out the rest of our podcast family at https://psychiatry.org/podcasts

For a transcript of this episode, visit: https://apafdn.org/news-events/mentally-healthy-nation-podcast/language-matters

While college is often reflected on as a great time in people's lives, that experience was never without stress and anxiety. However, over the past two years, issues that college students normally face have been exacerbated by the uncertainty and grief associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, societal reckonings, and racial and political tensions. So, how are college students doing these days?

Joining us today are two psychiatrists working on college campuses, Dr. Ludmila De Faria and Dr. Meera Menon. They give us insight into college mental health, how the pandemic and other issues have impacted students' experiences and access to services, and provide tips for families and loved ones to better support their students' mental health.

Ludmila De Faria, MD is an Associate Professor at the University of Florida where she also sees patients. Dr. De Faria has been a psychiatrist in Florida for over 15 years and is especially interested in increasing access and decreasing mental health disparities among minorities and providing a culturally sensitive environment for patients. She is a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and an active member of the APA's Council on Children, Adolescents, and Their Families. Dr. De Faria was born in Brazil where she earned her medical degree from the Universidade de Brasilia and moved to the United States in 1991 to complete medical training at Jackson Memorial Hospital/University of Miami.

Meera Menon, MD is a psychiatrist at Ohio State University’s Counseling and Consultation Service. At Ohio State, Dr. Menon is involved in the Eating Concerns Consultation Team, the Transgender Advocacy Team, and the Training Committee. In addition to also being an active member of the APA's Council on Children, Adolescents, and Their Families, she serves as Chair of the APA Caucus on College Mental Health and Secretary of the Association for College Psychiatry. Dr. Menon earned her medical degree from Wright State University where she also completed her psychiatry residency.

Resources for this episode:

• College Psychiatry: Strategies to Improve Access to Mental Health, featuring Dr. De Faria and edited by Dr. Menon and Michelle Riba MD.
• Guides to support policy decisions on college mental health
• The Campus Cure: A Parent's Guide to Mental Health and Wellness for College Students
• The Stressed Years of Their Lives: Helping Your Kid Survive and Thrive During Their College Years
• APA Foundation resources for parents and Notice. Talk. Act. at School

Check out the rest of our podcast family at psychiatry.org/podcasts

For a transcript of this episode, visit: https://apafdn.org/news-events/mentally-healthy-nation-podcast/how-are-college-students-doing

Trauma happens to everyone. When this trauma goes unnoticed and support is not provided, unfortunately, our youth end up in the juvenile justice system, paving a path to the adult system. But this does not have to be the way we operate. We must look to create communities that are trauma-informed. So instead of diverting people away from the criminal justice system, we are diverting them from trauma altogether. Today we bring to you a candid conversation between a psychiatrist, Dr. Anish Dube, and a judge, Theresa Dellick, on how trauma impacts our community and what can be done about it.

For a transcript of this episode, visit: https://apafdn.org/news-events/mentally-healthy-nation-podcast/traumas-impact-and-what-communities-can-do

As schools continue to think about how they can positively impact the mental health of their students, they should also consider the mental health of the staff supporting those students. In this episode, our host and Program Director of School and Justice Initiatives, Christopher Chun-Seeley, MSW, sits down with the Director of the APA Foundation’s Center for Workplace Mental Health, Darcy Gruttadaro, JD. The two discuss how school leaders can better support staff’s mental health and well-being and how staff can recognize when their colleagues might need support.

Resources from the Center for Workplace Mental Health

Notice. Talk. Act. at Work: https://workplacementalhealth.org/employer-resources/notice-talk-act-at-work

Workplace Stress: https://workplacementalhealth.org/mental-health-topics/workplace-stress

Mental Health and Well-being During and Beyond Covid-19: https://workplacementalhealth.org/employer-resources/employee-mental-health-well-being-during-beyond-co

Blog on Resilience: https://workplacementalhealth.org/News-Events/News-and-Blog/The-Value-of-Resiliency

For a transcript of this episode, visit: https://apafdn.org/news-events/mentally-healthy-nation-podcast/supporting-school-staffs-mental-health

November is Native American Heritage Month. Today, two psychiatrists who have worked with Indigenous peoples join us to talk about the struggles and protective factors associated with Indigenous mental health and how mental health professionals and others can become better advocates for Indigenous/Native American communities.

Resources for this episode:

• SAMHSA American Indian and Alaska Native Culture Card: A Guide to Build Cultural Awareness
• Toolkit for Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Promotion in Tribal Communities
• Groundswell: Indigenous Knowledge and a Call to Action for Climate Change
• Envision: The Big Picture
• One Sky Center, The American Indian/Alaska Native National Resource Center for Health, Education and Research
• We R Native website and We R Native Instagram
• Healthy Native Youth
• Center for Native American Youth

For a transcript of this episode, visit: https://apafdn.org/news-events/mentally-healthy-nation-podcast/indigenous-native-american-mental-health

Mary Hasbah Roessel, MD is a Navajo (Diné) psychiatrist from Round Rock, Arizona on the Navajo nation. She is a distinguished life fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and current APA Area 7 Trustee and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico at the Santa Fe Indian Health Center. She received her medical degree at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and returned to the southwest to complete her residency in psychiatry at the University of New Mexico. She received an APA/ NIMH Fellowship during her residency and has since worked for 30 years with Indigenous peoples of the southwest, Alaska, and British Columbia. She has special expertise in cultural psychiatry. She grew up on the Navajo reservation with her family and extended Navajo family. Her grandfather Ashihii, was a revered Navajo medicine man. She was the lead facilitator to the Indigenous Cultural competency course working with the American Psychiatric Association’s Division of Diversity and Health Equity. She is a member of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance and APA Caucus on Climate Change and Mental Health. She presented on a panel discussing Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in March 2016. She has provided presentations on Indigenous knowledge and climate change and wrote a chapter in the book:Groundswell- Indigenous knowledge and a call to action for climate change, edited by her husband, Joe Neidhardt, M.D., and daughter/artist, Nicole Neidhardt. Her chapter is on Essential Elements of Change, focused on living within two worlds—Indigenous and Western cultures in this climate crisis. She presented at COP26 in Glasgow, in November 2021 with her husband and daughter. The title of their presentation was: Walk In Beauty: Future Dreaming Through Indigenous Knowledges and Western Science. She enjoys spending time with her family hiking and participating in Navajo ceremonies in New Mexico and Arizona.

Monica Taylor-Desir, MD, MPH is a Consultant with the Department of Psychiatry and Psychology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, where she serves as a community psychiatrist for the Olmsted County Assertive Community Treatment Team and as the co-chair for the Diversity and Inclusion Committee for the Mayo Midwest Department of Psychiatry and Psychology. Prior to joining Mayo Clinic, Dr. Taylor-Desir served as a community psychiatrist for tribal communities for 16 years. Dr. Taylor-Desir graduated from the University Of Cincinnati College Of Medicine. After completing her psychiatry residency and a fellowship in community psychiatry at Emory University, Dr. Taylor-Desir began her career with the Winslow Indian Health Care Center in Winslow, AZ working with a predominantly Navajo population. This work was through her commitment to the National Health Service Corps as a Scholarship recipient. Dr. Taylor-Desir then moved to Phoenix, Arizona to serve the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community for eight years. She was the first tribally hired psychiatrist and provided outpatient psychiatric care to community members, worked with the crisis team, the Salt River Department of Corrections and t...