Be kind to your mind

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and local health care professionals want the community to know that mental health is just as important as physical health.

They are organizing a Mental Health Fair to illustrate the importance of taking care of the whole person – mind, body, and soul.

The fair will be held this Wednesday, May 15, from 5-7 at the Carrington City Park. The event will have 10 table sponsors, each offering a service that can help support or improve one's mental health. The table sponsors are there to help bring awareness of what resources are available to aid community members of all ages with their mental health.

The event will also consist of a free will supper, kids' activities, inflatable games and door prizes. All are welcome to attend.

The Mental Health Fair is one of the initiatives developed through funding offered by the University of North Dakota's Center for Rural Health (UND Rural Health) and Rural Health Innovations.

This past fall the organizations brought a program called "Rural Path to Value" to North Dakota. CHI St. Alexius Health Carrington was one of seven rural facilities invited to take part in this service. Through the program, critical access hospitals (CAH) and rural health clinics (RHC) receive assistance in designing a population health-based project that's customized to the unique needs of the communities each CAH serves and can be implemented with available resources.

The North Dakota Rural Path to Value program started in October 2023. To determine their focus, leaders of CHI St. Alexius Health Carrington reviewed the most recent Community Health Needs Assessment and identified mental health, and mental health awareness, as a top priority and focus area.

Then CHI called upon several community partners to help build their Rural Path to Value. Plans were made for two events to provide mental health awareness to the communities they serve.

The first is the Mental Health Fair, timely organized to occur during Mental Health Awareness Month.

A second event is in the works for the end of summer, likely in August. Plans are in motion for the community to host and/or sponsor mental health first aid training for those who work within area school systems and in our communities. The goal is to make the training available to not only the Carrington area, but also to surrounding communities before the 2024-25 school year begins. There is still much work to be done, and details will be provided as plans come together.

Both of these events are made possible through CHI St. Alexius Health Carrington's collaboration with the following entities: Foster County Public Health, Carrington Public School, Carrington City Library, Carrington Area Healthy Communities Coalition, Advance in Recovery and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.