Healthy Community Initiative

By Lisa Malecha as a Guest Columnist for the Faribault Daily News

Throughout my career in mental health I have served on many local committees, including the Healthy Community Initiative (HCI) Board of Directors for several years. Recently, I joined the Breakthrough Coalition, with the vision of having a community where youth and families have access to mental health and chemical health resources needed to breakthrough and thrive.

The Breakthrough Coalition is a new effort of HCI’s Rice County Chemical and Mental Health Coalition that works to reduce substance misuse and strengthen mental health in our youth communities. It has two teams—one serving Faribault and one serving Northfield.

I have worked as a helping professional for more than 35 years in a community with expansive resources, and I am continually stunned by the gaps in care. We can do better. Our community continues to have youth dying by suicide, youth lost to addiction, and youth who are homeless. I grew up here, and now as a mental health practitioner I continue to watch many struggle and have been to funerals for too many young people.

The ripple effect of one loss to death by suicide or a life stalled/stilled by addiction affects us all. One cannot count or quantify what is lost. There are holes in my heart, my family, and this community. I know we can do better! All our young people deserve support, care, and resources to become healthy and connected members of our community.

The number one protective factor, or way to support young people, is connectedness. Connectedness: a feeling of belonging. Take a moment to say hello, make eye contact, hire that young person and notice them. You can donate funds for a young person to participate in an activity, you can ask a neighbor kid to help you in your yard, or you can even serve on a local committee to support our young people.

Other ways you can help: donate office supplies to local mental health clinics, donate dollars for free counseling sessions (or to cover co-pays) or call local mental health clinics to ask if you can support a need.

I continue to sit on local committees and coalitions with the same people, and we need a new energy. Raising young people and creating a resilient community means having a cross section of the community represented in the work of closing the gaps in creating greater connectedness across generations and our community. Everyone has the capacity to create a sense of connectedness in our community. Pause, see the young people, volunteer your time or find ways to share your resources.

The Breakthrough Coalition is always open to new members. If you’d like to get involved or would like more information, please contact Molly Titchenal, network impact coordinator for the Rice County Chemical and Mental Health Coalition, at molly@healthycommunityinitiative.org.