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Fishers Cares: New City-Wide Initiative Seeks to Eliminate Stigma Surrounding Mental Illness
NEW CITY-WIDE INITIATIVE SEEKS TO ELIMINATE STIGMA SURROUNDING MENTAL ILLNESS
Writer / Jon Shoulders Photographer / Eli Beaverson
Five years ago, Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness and City Council Member Todd Zimmerman had an important discussion about the stigma surrounding mental health issues. They realized that a city-wide initiative, now known as the StigmaFreeFishers campaign, directed toward combating such stigmas, would be well worth the effort on a city-wide scale.
One major component of that campaign is Fishers Cares, the city’s latest structured effort to combat mental and emotional problems, and the stigma that can surround them. “We wanted to get faith-based groups, nonfaith groups, nonprofits and other businesses in our community together for Fishers Cares,” Zimmerman explains. “We’re trying to cross denominations and get people of all walks of life to come together and talk about the stigma of things like mental illness, anxiety and depression. We need to get people to somehow start talking about their experiences so they realize they’re not alone.”
During a preliminary Fishers Cares brainstorming session Zimmerman held to discuss ideas on how to structure a program to directly help those in need, representatives from more than 40 local organizations and nonprofits showed up. Fishers Cares was officially launched last October and provides anyone in the community with an opportunity to schedule an appointment on the official StigmaFreeFishers website and meet at one of several Fishers locations with a trained volunteer for 30 minutes to one hour.
“You can sign up online, or do a walk-in at one of the places like the churches we have listed,” Zimmerman says. “You can just meet someone and get away from whatever your situation is - basically anything that’s not a 9-1-1 situation, or a situation where you need licensed therapy,” Zimmerman says. “It’s a first line of defense. You’ll have someone to be a listening ear and allow you to talk about what’s bothering you or stressing you out.”
Anyone interested in participating can simply provide their name and basic contact information on the Fishers Cares website, such as an email address, to schedule an appointment. No personal information is collected or filed with the city.
“This is really the first step in a broader approach of trying to get the community to rally around each other and trust each other, so we don’t see as many tragedies - if we can avoid one suicide or one home situation that gets out of control from stress, that’s what this is designed for,” Zimmerman adds.
Grace Chruch Fishers Campus Pastor Kevin Roth
Every Fishers Cares volunteer undergoes a basic training program known as Mental Health First Aid, and Zimmerman says that while volunteers aren’t offering professional help, they can be a simple sounding board for those who need to discuss issues, problems or stressful situations.
“If someone has cancer that doesn’t generally ostracize that person, but if someone has a mental health crisis, then sometimes the tendency is to keep that person at an arm’s length,” Zimmerman says. “Every human being has some sort of anxiety, so at that ground level we should be able to have conversations without ostracizing people.”
Zimmerman stresses that all local entities are welcome to participate in Fishers Cares, including faith-based and nonfaith organizations alike.
According to Zimmerman, in 2014 there were 151 immediate police detentions in Fishers.
Grace Church Associate Pastor of Care Wendy Herrberg
City Council Member Todd Zimmerman
- Todd Zimmerman
hurting themselves or others,” he says. “Back in 2015 when we first started thinking about StigmaFreeFishers, that was one of the things we looked hard at and wanted to change.”
Zimmerman hopes the Fishers Cares program becomes one of many local initiatives that help to strip mental illness of what he says is an unnecessary stigma.
“We really want a few people to sign up to kickstart things, and be leaders by not being afraid to meet up with someone for coffee and just talk,” he says. “There’s nothing wrong with that. The problem with successful communities is we tend to hide things behind closed doors, and that can spill over into ugly situations.”
For additional details on StigmaFreeFishers and the Fishers Cares program, visit stigmafreefishers. com, which includes an appointment scheduling page. To learn more about volunteering for Fishers Cares, contact Todd Zimmerman at zimmermant@ fishers.in.us.
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