{"id":626586,"date":"2026-05-06T09:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T09:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/626586\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T09:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T09:36:12","slug":"mrs-north-dakota-america-advocates-for-mental-health-inforum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/626586\/","title":{"rendered":"Mrs. North Dakota America advocates for mental health &#8211; InForum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Editor\u2019s note: If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health or suicidal thoughts, help is available. Call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or chat via 988lifeline.org<\/p>\n<p>FARGO \u2014 A local nurse practitioner of psychiatry is using her platform as Mrs. North Dakota America to advocate for mental health and suicide prevention.<\/p>\n<p>Sara Dukart works for Sanford Health in Moorhead. She earned her crown in April.<\/p>\n<p>And her five-year-old daughter, Caia Rose, won &#8220;Little Miss for North Dakota.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"Image\" alt=\"686494421_1310462544557782_7923727291802356119_n.jpg\"  width=\"840\" height=\"1121\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.forumcomm.com\/dims4\/default\/b85b556\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/1440x1921+0+0\/resize\/840x1121!\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fforum-communications-production-web.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2Ff6%2F18%2Ffd29faa24f57a3439548813c31cf%2F686494421-1310462544557782-7923727291802356119-n.jpg\" data-lazy-load=\"true\" bad-src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciIHZlcnNpb249IjEuMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxMTIxcHgiIHdpZHRoPSI4NDBweCI+PC9zdmc+\"\/><\/p>\n<p>        Sara Dukart, Mrs. North Dakota America, poses with her daughter, Caia Rose.<\/p>\n<p>Contributed<\/p>\n<p>Her platform is &#8220;Hope Through Help,&#8221; which aims to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health issues and suicidal thoughts.<\/p>\n<p>Dukart survived her own suicide attempt at age 13.<\/p>\n<p>And she&#8217;s not limiting her message to the pageant stage.<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, May 10, she&#8217;ll be in Washington to talk to U.S. lawmakers and secure federal funding for the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;One thing I&#8217;ve really been pushing is like normalizing the conversations around mental health. When we start becoming more comfortable about it, that&#8217;s where the stigmas are going to fall away,&#8221; said Dukart, a nurse practitioner of psychiatry at Sanford Health.<\/p>\n<p>May is also Mental Health Awareness Month.<\/p>\n<p>\n                Kjersti Maday joined WDAY as a reporter in May of 2024. She is a native of Granada, Minnesota and graduated from Minnesota State University Moorhead in 2015.\n            <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s note: If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health or suicidal thoughts, help is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":["post-626586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}