May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and we wanted to expand upon our reflections of the Mental Wellness Convening we hosted in December 2024. We’ve uploaded videos from every session of the convening to YouTube for anyone who missed it and wanted to attend, and for those who attended to revisit. We also asked several partners who attended the convening to share their key takeaways from the two-day event. We also asked them to share what barriers they face in their work, and what kind of investment they would like to see made with more funding. We are immensely grateful to our five partners for sharing more about their work, and hope that you will be able to join us for future gatherings.
- Corn Williams, LEAF Harm Reduction
Some key takeaways from last winter’s convening for me were, recognizing the power in community that was reflected in the strength of the attendees, and the overwhelmingly pro black atmosphere that made me feel more comfortable just “being” than I have felt at any of the many harm reduction convenings I’ve attended. What stood out the most in the breakout session was the focus on service provision. Many of the orgs being represented were operating without direct support from larger organizations or coalitions. This stood out as a focus on impact and direct service, which is definitely close to the chest for me.
The barriers I face at work are likely no different than what most of us are up against: lack of funding and governmental obstruction. That said, current crisis stabilization needs in Washtenaw County and statewide are dire; food support budgets have been slashed along with departmental discretionary crisis support budgets. Most shelters are well beyond capacity and overnight respite options for winter months have ended for the season. This has left many of our participants and countless community members on the streets with no options and no resources, leading to increased police interactions and engagement in higher risk behaviors. The City is actively attempting to obstruct the limited services that we are able to provide and there has been no available funding support from the county or the state.
With more funding we can continue to work towards and actualize the establishment of a 24hr low barrier respite facility with an embedded Harm Reduction Agency to provide, shelter, food, and hygiene support alongside access to harm reduction services like drug checking, safer use consultation and education, safer use supply access, testing for bloodborne pathogens, and access to wrap around services. This model should serve as a stepping stone to cultivate conversation and action around holistic harm reduction interventions for high risk communities.
- Aldeana Goodspeed, Steps to Life, Inc.
Some of the barriers I am facing in my line of work is…..the need for connections to positive support settings for people with mental health concerns, along with transportation services. I talk to numerous people who meet with MH providers and get medication, which is half the battle. There needs to be more facilities to offer supportive services like recreation, outings, and positive interactions along with transportation to get to and from.
- Lance Hicks, Detroit Peer Respite
It was grounding to be in space with likeminded collaborators from across sectors of work and communities of practice. As an abolitionist, I know we don’t get anywhere of benefit by moving is isolation, but so often these concepts are just ideological. In practice, I find I am almost always — no matter what movement I align with — opting into and out of spaces based on politics and identity, moreso than praxis and relationship. This convening felt like a demonstration of setting a lot of that aside. In the space were a number of folks who come from places similar to me, and many who don’t. There were folks whose intuitive understanding of my community might make me feel safer, and folks who expressed hearing words like those I spoke for the first time in their lives. I believe this is actually what interdisciplinary abolitionist movement-building should feel like. I’m so grateful to have been included. In my ongoing work to support the building power of Detroit Peer Respite, I hope to spend time in many more rooms filled with folks I don’t recognize, in collaborative effort to continue offering care without coercion, harm, or carceral frameworks.
Building values-aligned infrastructure, at this moment, frankly means learning how to do a lot of work without a lot of money. I say this in a guarded way, because of course our movements are right to reflect that we need financial power, to some degree, to ensure both our ability to resource the work, and our commitment to funding the most oppressed organizers to lead the charge. At the same time, I am not hopeful that we are able to raise in dollars the power needed to beat capitalist strategies in 2025. My perspective is that re-investing in relationship and de-centering the roles of both media and funding-reliant strategies , is our best bet at the moment.
I believe we need to prioritize funding for:
- The leadership development of marginalized organizers with lived experiences of incarceration (including psychiatric incarceration), psychiatric survivorship, housing instability and homelessness, criminalization and poverty, migration, genocide, or other massive systematic and structurally embedded harms
- Coordinated approaches to securing land/housing for long-term Detroit residents and Black Detroit residents, and for organizations engaged in long-term, committed community solidarity work in Detroit
- Funding to seed projects that promote self-reliance of marginalized Detroiters across sectors of food, housing, wealth-building, education, industry and technology, and more
- Increased opportunities for meaningful relationship-building between active movement workers in Detroit, especially those that diverge from more traditional conference models, and that offer in-person options that are mindful of COVID precautions and universal design/access to the greatest degree possible
- Dion Riggen-EL, Free People Free People
How did the convening impact you?
What barriers do you all face as a grassroots organization?
This year, after attending the convening I was able to share many important perspectives with my associates. One of the greatest being, our passion is not going to shift the minds of those who make the decisions but our unified work will.
I was impacted in two ways 1. knowing that there are people in our community that has a concern for others. 2. Adding to my purpose for helping those in need.
Mental health is bordering on becoming a sweltering pandemic. My associates of Free People Free People and l are working diligently with incarcerated individuals to prevent this from happening. The barriers of being a grassroot organization do not prevent us from strengthening those who have experienced considerable trauma as they navigate their prison experience. The barriers as a grassroots organization, Is getting people to get involved as far as funding and participation.
Changing lives one conversation at a time is our motto. With stronger support, donations and commitment we could reach even more of those who need us. We invite others to join us with changing the narrative as we provide the connective platform necessary to rebuild, renew and redeem justice impacted individuals.
What work is Free People Free People doing with incarcerated men? Why is this work important?
What work are you all doing with youth?
The work that Fp Fp do with those that are incarcerated, adding an assisting with their mental health giving them a space to open up and change their mental state dealing with the barriers that they have substance abuse, aggressive behavior etc.
The work we do with our youth we mentor them, offer them opportunities to build relationships with their peers, prepare them for being independent and successful when reaching adulthood.
- Pam Lynch, Harm Reduction Michigan
With more funding, what investment would you like to see made that will make a deeper impact in your work?
“If HRMI had the funding (staff, etc.) to do more education, or produce educational materials, we believe that would make a substantial impact. This would make a big impact not only on HRMI’s work, but also on the work of larger systems, other organizations, and entities impacting many communities and the people and families in them.
It’s time that we make some substantial system changes to the ways that the U.S. deals with addiction and substance use. For what is generally deemed a “1st world ” country, the U.S. is painfully behind in handling the issues of addiction and substance use. Other countries, (some with far fewer resources than the U.S.) have implemented approaches that achieve and maintain vastly improved long-term outcomes.”
- You state that “[education materials] would make a big impact not only on HRMI’s work” – how so? People could argue that the education is out there…what kind of education and why/ how would it make an impact?
I disagree. Education is NOT out there. Harm Reduction (philosophy and practice) was basically at a standstill in Wayne County for far too long. Many of the communities repressed by current policies do not challenge barriers intrinsic to the existing system (addiction handled as a criminal issue,, not a health issue.)
- You state “Other countries, (some with far fewer resources than the U.S.) have implemented approaches that achieve and maintain vastly improved long-term outcomes.” – such as?
For example, Colombia ( a country whose people arguably experienced the worst of the drug war) has decriminalized possession of small amounts (3 grams or less) of substances so that resources are not wasted penalizing, and further complicating users’ lives. Evaluation results of course are still pending.
They legalized drug checking services so that hey could figure out what adulterants are killing people, instead of criminalizing people trying to find solutions.
France no longer has a heroin problem because they gave everyone in the country who wanted to quit opiates access to buprenorphine
( France has socialized medicine.)
The country of Georgia eliminated hepatitis C virus, by testing and treating people. I am pretty sure the treatment was subsidized by a pharmaceutical company who was seeking to prove it could be done, if people had access.