More than 4,000 federal workers have received “reduction in force” notices since the federal government shutdown began. <\/p>\n
Among the agencies hit is the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a grantmaking agency that provides funding and support for state mental health programs. It’s best known for funding and operating the 988 Suicide Prevention Hotline.<\/p>\n
After 24 years of dedication to the mental health field, Sue Abderholden<\/a> closed her laptop one last time.<\/p>\n “I will be officially retired,” said Abderholden, executive director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness Minnesota.\u00a0<\/p>\n “What are you going to miss the most?” WCCO asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n “The people. I’ve just met so many incredible people in this job,” said Abderholden.<\/p>\n As the head of NAMI Minnesota, she compares today’s mental health climate to when she first walked in the door.<\/p>\n “People are talking about it, which didn’t really happen 24 years ago,” said Abderholden. “People aren’t afraid to share that they’re living with mental illness.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Now she says some of that progress might be at risk, saying cuts at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration are a problem.<\/p>\n “We have 988 that’s under SAMHSA. We think that’s safe for now, but we really need to watch it,” said Abderholden.\u00a0<\/p>\n She adds that SAMHSA issues the Community Mental Health Block Grant, which funds services insurance can’t.<\/p>\n Some of those services include:\u00a0<\/p>\n Native American servicesEducation NAMI providesMental health hotlines like “988”<\/p>\n SAMHSA also oversees community behavioral health clinics in-person services at several Minnesota locations.<\/p>\n “After all these years trying to build the system, we’re not there yet but we’ve made progress, I see this as really devastating to the future of our mental health system,” said Abderholden.<\/p>\n She says the cuts that are chipping away at that system make her retirement bittersweet.<\/p>\n If you or someone you know is in emotional distress, get help from the\u00a0Suicide and Crisis Lifeline<\/a>\u00a0by calling or texting 988. Trained crisis counselors are available 24 hours a day to talk about anything.<\/p>\n In addition, help is available from the\u00a0National Alliance on Mental Illness<\/a>, or NAMI. Call the NAMI Helpline at\u00a0800-950-6264<\/a>\u00a0or text “HelpLine” to 62640. There are more than 600 local NAMI organizations and affiliates across the country, many of which offer free support and education programs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 4,000 federal workers have received “reduction in force” notices since the federal government shutdown began. Among…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[8705,163,85,46,522,523],"class_list":["post-78797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-federal-government-of-the-united-states","tag-health","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}