This Friday at Rice and Arlington Fields in St. Paul, Ramsey County residents can look forward to a screening of Pixar’s “Inside Out,” accompanied by information about available mental health and wellness resources. Food trucks and family activities will also be provided to attendees.
This event, the “Pause for Wellness Initiative,” which will take place from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., is the result of a collaborative effort between Ramsey County and C.A. Ellis & Associates LLC to bring together Ramsey County’s African American community to offer and highlight the presence of mental health resources, including those offered by the county itself.
“Our overall approach has always been to create activities to then bring people out to then inform them,” said Candice Ellis, owner and founder of C.A. Ellis & Associates LLC, an organization focused on consulting, with a particular emphasis on mental health and wellness. “How do we get people out? That’s typically by creating something fun and exciting. And then (during) that time, provide them with the resources or just (let) them know where it is that they can locate the resources on hand.”
The groundwork for this event began by going to the community to ask about their wants and needs. After noticing that communities of color utilized voluntary mental health services less in Ramsey County, the county worked with C.A. Ellis & Associates to conduct a needs assessment to inform officials of community needs and wants.
“The assessment was completed in the form of community forms (and in) a focus group where the community was able to inform Ramsey County what the needs were, where the gaps are, and what mental wellness looks like in Ramsey County – what residents really want that to look like,” said Sophia Thompson, director of Ramsey County Social Services. “Following the needs assessment, Ramsey County continued to partner with Candace Ellis and Associates to continue this work to build capacity for mental health services within the African American community.”
Ultimately, the needs assessment indicated that community members wanted resources, but did not know what was available, said Ellis.
The county will provide information at the event about various social services offered, including children and family services and the MnCHOICES application for assessment and support services. Additionally, said Ellis, there will be “licensed therapists or psychologists (who) will be giving out mental health journals” at the event.
The event’s focus on mental health encompasses general self care, as well as furthering awareness of available mental health services. To promote self care, Ellis added, there will be massage therapy at the event, along with juice from Plant Bar Cafe.
A large part of the event is about normalizing the conversation about mental health, not just individually, but in community.
“We really feel that having an event in the community where we’re talking about it, where we’re living and breathing it, will help normalize the conversation about how people look to be well in their individual lives, but within their community as well,” said Thompson. “(It’s about) normalizing that conversation around not just mental illness or mental struggles, but mental wellness and really shifting to talking about how we can be well together.”
For children and young people at the event, the hope, said Bobbi Jo Potter, co-director of Social Services at Ramsey County, is that the event will spark conversations about emotional awareness and intelligence.
“Emotional intelligence isn’t something that we have in schools (that) is taught regularly,” said Potter. “(This event is) providing people opportunity and space to watch a good movie and, and be able to have conversations with their family about the emotions and how they show up in our lives.”
The event is also set up to counter stigma surrounding mental health services within the African American community. When a member of the community faces mental health challenges, said Ellis, concerns are addressed most often through prayer or by speaking with family members, who, while well-meaning, may not be equipped to deal with certain situations.
“Our approach is to say, ‘Yes, you can pray about it, but while you pray about it, let’s take care of other self needs and/or meet with qualified individuals that can help you to move along,’” said Ellis. “It’s not a bad thing. There’s different people, different resources, traditional as well as non-traditional, that can help you through these challenges you may be having.”
All the providers at the event are people of color, added Ellis, which assists the event in “creat(ing) that comfortability with receiving (and/or) learning about services.”
To attend the event, residents of Ramsey County can register online. The county is also seeking community members to participate in their community advisory council for mental health – a compensated position that advises the county on their efforts to promote mental wellbeing.
C.A. Ellis & Associates is also running standalone and partnered events for the next year and a half.
Deanna Pistono
Deanna Pistono is MinnPost’s Race & Health Equity fellow. Follow her on Twitter @deannapistono or email her at dpistono@minnpost.com.
