Mental Health Matters: We’re not the only ones counting!

September 11, 2015

When talking about mental health it sometimes feels like no one is listening.  While millions of people are affected by mental health issues, there still is a stigma around TALKING about it.  So when I saw the Forbes article What Does Your 2016 Presidential Candidate Say About Mental Health, by Emily Willingham, I was excited to see that someone else understands the importance of discussing this topic. For the past three months Hillcrest staff has been tracking mentions of mental health from presidential candidates in our Iowa Cares about Mental Health campaign with the hope of bringing more attention to the issue. In the article, she clearly articulates that mental health is “barely on the radar of most of the 2016 presidential candidates.”

Ms. Willingham, we have found the same thing.  Over the last three months our staff have counted only 19 mentions of mental health by the 22 candidates running for president. And many of these mentions came on the heels of tragedy. It should not take a tragedy for people, especially presidential candidates, to talk about something impacting millions of people, should it?

Thank you Ms. Willingham for putting mental health and presidential candidates in the spot light.  It deserves to be there so everyone can see it and start talking about it.

– Gary Gansemer, President/CEO Hillcrest Family Services