Q. What drew you to the NAMI Minnesota leadership role? <\/p>\n
Schmit: It starts with the mission, right? I\u2019m really passionate about the mission. It just impacts so many people. I wasn\u2019t looking to leave Hearth Connection … [where] we really doubled down on the important work of supportive housing, which is, you know, the housing and the services that people who have long histories of mental illness challenges really need. As I went through that process, I just realized what an opportunity it [would be at NAMI Minnesota] to apply that experience in policymaking, both as a main advocate and in nonprofit leadership, rooted in my public service background involving housing, homelessness, food security, corrections and health care. Mental health is the through line on all of this. But you know, it\u2019s also personal experience, and I\u2019ve had my own challenges. <\/p>\n
Q. Do you want to say more? Sue Abderholden was candid that her own family lived with mental illness. It made her a very credible but approachable advocate.<\/p>\n
Schmit: I\u2019ve navigated cyclothymia, which is like a mild form of bipolar, and never really understood that this was something that wasn\u2019t normal. It was my wife who encouraged me to look into it. And that was two years ago, so I was navigating the condition for a lot of my teen and adult years. It\u2019s been life-changing getting medication to help me manage that. It\u2019s made me a better husband and better dad. It\u2019s just made me more confident and comfortable in my own skin, too. <\/p>\n
If at the end of the day, one of the things that I\u2019m able to accomplish by talking about it is to help bring more people into a conversation that will get them more comfortable getting the help that they need, then I will feel very proud of that. <\/p>\n
Q. As NAMI Minnesota\u2019s executive director, you will lead an organization that\u2019s become a force at the State Capitol and a statewide resource. Is it daunting to step into your new role? And what can you tell people who might be worried about Abderholden\u2019s departure?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Q. What drew you to the NAMI Minnesota leadership role? Schmit: It starts with the mission, right? I\u2019m…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,393,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-258963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}