Stanford University Urban Studies &
Urban Summer Fellowship
Student perspectives of community-engaged learning and research across the United States
Hello everyone! To quickly reintroduce myself, I’m Angela Lee and I’ve been working at the National Alliance on Mental Illness at the San Francisco branch this summer. I still have one more week at the office, so I have recently been thinking about the best ways for me to finish up my projects and help the team get a head-start on work for the new fiscal/academic year. In addition, I’ve been taking some time to reflect on my time at NAMI, think through all of the questions that our conversations have raised, and try to figure out concrete ways for me to keep contributing to our cause once I’m back at school.
I worked on a variety of projects during my time with NAMI, focusing primarily on our psychoeducation programs that serve individuals living with mental illness and individuals with loved ones with mental illness. For our Family-to-Family and Peer-to-Peer classes, I helped to prepare for classes, publicize our programs, and conduct analysis on our outcome data to evaluate our effectiveness and report to Mental Health Services. For our high school outreach presentations, Ending the Silence, I helped create promotional materials, conduct data analysis on outcome data, recruit and train speakers, and coordinate with SF Unified School District and local private schools to schedule presentations. I also assisted with more resource projects, including creating a comprehensive publicity document, a new methodology for analyzing outcome data, a compiled outcome data report, promotional flyers and leaflets, an updated resource guide, an updated website, and graphics for our social media accounts. In the later part of the summer, I also conducted interviews with the participants and mentors in our Mentors on Discharge program that pairs recently discharged individuals with mental illness with a trained peer mentor to help ease the transition with emotional and social support. Throughout the summer, I also staffed the Helpline, fundraised for the NAMIWalks 5k, assisted with grants, helped prepare the newsletter, and launched social media advocacy campaigns to fight attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. I also (finally!) learned the names of all the districts near me in San Francisco, figured out my MUNI commute after my go-to stop was suddenly removed, and had the opportunity to hear many perspectives on The City – ranging from idealistic optimism for the implications of the tech boom to anger and sadness because of the gentrification and mass displacement. I think the best way I can encapsulate my summer experiences with NAMI is with our unofficial team motto of “Drop by drop fills a cup.” I’ve learned so, so, so much in my time with NAMI. In addition to learning about the logistical ins-and-outs of working at a nonprofit, I think one of the most important things that I learned is striving to embrace humility, but not complacency. There’s so much going on the world right now, and there’s so many people hurting, and so many problems that desperately need to be addressed and fixed and solved. Mental health, mental illness, suicide prevention and psychological wellbeing are a subset of these problems – and they’re already such massive issues with over 6.1 million individuals in the United States experiencing some form of mental illness and with more than 100,000 Americans attempting suicide each year. And on a more local scale, it hurts to read headline after headline about the suicide cluster crisis so close to home and to school, it hurts to see people pointing from tour busses and taking pictures of mentally ill individuals in the city, and it hurts to see so many people literally stepping over homeless folks on their daily commutes to work without even a glance or flicker of empathy. The need for change is overwhelming, and the work can feel overwhelming. At times, it was so, so hard to be spending hours in the office crunching numbers and writing grants to get money for our program addressing dual-diagnosis, and then go to our support group meetings and hear about someone losing a loved one to an overdose. Although I know that the work is important even if in an indirect way, it sometimes felt like nothing I did was helping fast enough. But something I’ve learned – through many lunchtime conversations, somber or angry or sad or hopeful – is that even though I’m just one person, I am one person in this community that is fighting so hard to do some good in this world. I hope to acknowledge the enormity of the work ahead of us by staying humble, but never becoming complacent by always striving to do the most that I can – one drop at a time. I can’t describe how grateful I am to the people I have met on my team, and the incredible group of volunteers that keeps NAMI running. Whether I was sitting in on board meetings, checking in with support group leaders, discussing logistics with program coordinators, or even just emailing back-and-forth with our high school outreach speakers, I felt struck by how truly wonderful it is to be around such motivated people who genuinely care and genuinely want to help. I might sound like I am exaggerating, but our lunchtime chats with our interns and directors would sometimes be the highlight of my day and the burst of hope to keep me going through a stressful and busy summer. As I start preparing to pack up my things and head back to school, I have been thinking frequently about how I can continue to help continue this work from a distance. In addition to staying updated on mental health advocacy and being involved with groups on campus, I’m going to try to help NAMI with social media and graphic design work throughout the school year. Although I can’t help with on-site resources like support groups and the Helpline anymore, I hope that my efforts will help NAMI help others. Finally, I am looking forward to reuniting with everyone at my very first (walking!) 5k next month for NAMIWalks and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. All small things – but I am hopeful that enough small things will add up and make a difference in someone's life one day. One small step at a time. Best wishes to everyone, Angela
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AuthorThis blog is authored by Stanford University students engaged in summer fellowships through the Cardinal Quarter and the Program on Urban Studies. All writings and thoughts belong to the Fellows and do not represent the opinion of the sponsoring programs. Archives
September 2018
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