Mental Health Awareness Resources

May is mental health awareness month, this week being mental illness awareness week, one of many awareness events this year. This is an important time to be able to understand through awareness, education, and prevention about mental health and mental illness before it becomes a problem. So to support pastors, counselors, mental health professional allies, family members of those who struggle with mental illness, and those with mental illness, we want to share resources for you.

Below is a list of resources in a variety of contexts to help you build awareness, reduce stigma, and help people get into services they need.

• Building Awareness
  I actually shared a bunch of resources for Recovery month on KeyMinistry.org last October you should check out.
• Church Mental Health Awareness Cards
  These are designed for churches to hang up and to be quickly informative and motivating as well as at the bottom giveaway the individual reading it can tear off a perforated card to request more information, prayer, or to volunteer with your mental health team.
• NAMI’s “You Are Not Alone” Campaign
  Every year, NAMI provides new resources for you to share, free of charge, via their event guide, including statistics, social media graphics, videos, and event ideas. Definitely worth checking out.
• Grace Alliance’s YouTube
  I’m always a fan of Grace Alliance, but they have some good YouTube content that goes into their resources for free, including how to overcome anxiety, address theological issues with mental health, and creating groups in your church to support your congregation and community.
• Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
  SAMHSA makes grants to various agencies to prevent and treat addictive and mental disorders and furthers its work through public campaigns, system reform, policy and program analysis. Most research that is United States centric is funded or endorsed in some way by SAMHSA.
• FindTreatment.gov
  This is a SAMHSA initiative to ensure individuals are able to find treatment providers quickly and easily. Just type in your zip code and see what is available.