Sharing Your Story for Mental Health Advocacy

​COVID-19 is making almost everything more difficult, including mental health advocacy at the state legislature.

With a remote session, we have to do more to effectively engage legislators. NAMI Minnesota is doing their best to represent people with mental illnesses, but your help is needed if we are going to have a successful legislative session and pass bills to build our mental health system.

The most powerful tool you have as an advocate is your personal story. (Click to Tweet)
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​You don't need to know all the facts, all you need is your personal experience with the mental health system and your insight into the parts of our system that are working or need improvement.

• Have you or a loved one benefited from an ACT Team or a First Episode Psychosis Program
• Have you experienced emergency room boarding or have you had to travel long distances to access inpatient mental health treatment?
• Have you or a loved one benefited from children's residential mental health treatment?
• Do you have experience with the criminal justice system?

These are just a few areas where they could use your insights.

Telling your story is important and it's easier than you might think. All you need to do is capture the following details in one page or less:

1. Introduce yourself and where you live
2. Share what you think is the most important part of your experience with mental illness.
3. Is there a service that made a difference for you or a loved one?
4. Is there a gap in the mental health system that needs to be fixed?
5. Make your ask. What needs to change? What part of our system needs more resources? NAMI Minnesota can also help with this part.

A story can be anonymous if you like, or you can just use your first name if that's what you're comfortable with at this time.

Once you've written your story, please send it to namihelps@namimn.org. If you'd also like it to be considered for publication on this blog, send it our way as well at namiwashingtoncounty@namimn.org.

Thank you for joining our advocacy team as a storyteller!

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Author: NAMI Minnesota

You can sign up for NAMI Minnesota's Legislative updates here.