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5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful Suggestions for Raising Awareness of Mental Illness!, April 29, 2009
This review is from: Mental Illness and Your Town: 37 Ways for Communities to Help and Heal (New Horizons in Therapy Series) (Paperback)
May is Mental Health month, and what better way to observe it than to get people in your community involved by providing them with a better understanding of mental illness.
"Mental Illness and Your Town" is the perfect solution to communicating the message of mental illness and how communities can work together to improve the situation for everyone involved. It is an idea book--37 ideas for helping communities understand mental illness and provide better services for those with mental illness. Some of the ideas may seem like common sense, but author Larry Hayes, long time advocate for those with mental illness, points out the lack of coordination, understanding, and responsiveness within communities for those who suffer with a mental illness. This book is for the family members, those with mental illness themselves, the community, social workers, lawyers, police, doctors, nurses and anyone who may come in contact with or help someone who has a mental illness. That means you! It means everyone. As Hayes explains, one in ten people during their lifetimes will suffer from mental illness. If it's not you, it will be a loved one. We can all benefit by learning as much about mental illness as possible and being advocates for those with mental illness.
Integral to educating people about mental illness is dispelling myths. Hayes points out that mothers do not cause mental illness, although their depression may affect a child's development of it. However, it is just as likely a mother can prevent mental illness in her child. Hayes states, "Nurture mental wellness in a new mother and she then can nurture it in the child. Mom isn't the culprit. She can be a child's best therapist." Another myth to dispel is that those with mental illness cannot function in society. In fact, many can hold down jobs and those who work at least part-time feel better about themselves, appreciating the chance to feel self-reliant. If holding down a job is too difficult or frightening for someone with mental illness, the person can volunteer his services, thus still achieving self-esteem without as much pressure.
Anyone interested in mental illness needs to read "Mental Illness and Your Town." I cannot do justice in this space to all the ideas Hayes presents--some may work for all communities, some for just certain communities, but they are a rich number of solutions to the absent or insufficient help for those with mental illness that many communities provide. Hayes describes the shortcomings of many current suicide prevention hotlines and how a community can create its own successfully. He provides advice for parents on estate planning so their adult child with mental illness will be provided for after their death. Hayes advocates and explains how to recruit those with the power to recruit others, from journalists to lawyers, politicians, to judges, and the police. He provides details on creating conferences for the police, doctors and nurses about how to interact with those who suffer from mental illness. Awareness is key to understanding mental illness; Hayes provides numerous means to raise awareness from creating brochures and mental health directories to larger projects like setting up a Depression Center or a clubhouse for people who suffer from mental illness to go to be themselves and gain self-esteem.
Author Larry Hayes knows what he speaks about. He is honest from the first page, speaking without shame about his own bouts with depression and his son's mental illness. Hayes was once hospitalized for six weeks for depression and he has undergone twelve shock treatments. His son has been suicidal, but with love, understanding and help from his family and community, he has functioned in society. Hayes is himself an award-winning columnist who wrote editorials in Fort Wayne's Journal Gazette for over a quarter century to provide education to people about mental illness. He has been involved in numerous groups, including the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). He was fundamental in forming the Carriage House, a highly acclaimed rehabilitation center, in creating the Suicide Prevention Council, and in starting a countywide Mental Health Coordinating Council. He also successfully lobbied Indiana University Purdue University, Fort Wayne to create the Institute for Behavior Studies.
"Mental Illness and Your Town" concludes with a final chapter that offers guides to inventing a new system to deal with mental illness and provide treatment and resources for those who suffer from mental illness. An annotated list of resources, both books and websites, concludes the book.
Readers who know nothing about mental illness will come away feeling not only more informed, but thoughtful about the people they have known with mental illness, and they will want to learn more about this often misunderstood illness that affects everyone directly or indirectly. Those already involved in helping people with mental illness will find fresh, well-thought out ideas to further their efforts, and finally, those who suffer from mental illness will find reassurance that people do care and want to understand, and that the lines of communication have been opened wider because Larry Hayes wrote "Mental Illness and Your Town."
[...]
-- Tyler R. Tichelaar, Ph.D., author of The Marquette Trilogy
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2.0 out of 5 stars
Information is easily found elsewhere~!!, October 5, 2011
This review is from: Mental Illness and Your Town: 37 Ways for Communities to Help and Heal (New Horizons in Therapy Series) (Paperback)
Mental Illness and Your Town: 37 Ways for Communities to Help and Heal.
This easy-to-read book has been written as a blueprint for community action from award-winning journalist, Larry Hayes.
In this book you wil learn how each person can play a role to help those who suffer; you will hear stories of people who overcame their disabilities; discover how each of us can work together to create a "treatment revolution" that will help to save lives and it will open your heart and your mind in order to work towards a positive community goal.
There are six sections in the book with up to seven chapters to each section. Each section is backed by data, references, first-hand accounts as well as, ideas and solutions.
The Faces: This section describes the different type of people who may suffer from mental health, the problem areas and how to help reduce the numbers.
The Helpers: This section describes the different ways in which people can help. How one can gather the information they need to meet the community and in which ways it can be shared.
The Personal: This includes concepts to begin discussing the subject of mental health, how you can empower someone with a mental stigma and the pertinent information of each person's disclosure.
The Recruiters: How you can reach out to the community for help, for guidance and to share information. It encourages you not to be shy in your approach, enlist anyone who has the heart to listen and utilize your community events to help bring recognition to mental health issues.
The Innovations: Discusses ways in which you can launch new programs in your community.
The Reforms: There are programs already in place but some of them need some "tuning" in order to work with the individual within the community. With proper training and information, each person who reaches out for the attention they require, will have the proper response if everyone is on the same page.
You will also find reference books you can enlist in your research as well as internet resources.
I found this book to have some great merits about it, however, I didn't glean any information from it that would push me to go out and incorporate what I learned. It seemed that just as an idea was being formed, the author pushed off to another topic, leaving me wanting. I thought it was very easy-to-read and written with out pretense, talking to you and not at you as most of these self-help books do.
I liked the relaxed way in which the ideas are shared as well, some of the approaches suggested were easy to understand, written clearly and concisely. There were a few instances in which it seemed like the author was basing his information on one community only, as in the chapter about "observing celebrations", it is mentioned that you would not find a float in a parade concerning mental health and I have to disagree with that statement. My community is always involved with mental health awareness, we have 90% of the ideas shared within this book and still, it is quite a concern. My underlying thoughts believe it has to do with management and the lack thereof. I believe the chapter on The Reforms was the best chapter in the book and I would have liked to have seen more ideas given.
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