Grassroots Groundwork

Amazing! Wishing everyone a joyful, safe pride month ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

New Public Resource for LGBTQ+ Su***de Prevention Launched this Pride Month This LGBTQ+ Pride Month, the American Foundation for Su***de Prevention (AFSP), the largest private funder of su***de prevention research, is hosting its first national public presentations of Pride Pathways: Su***de Prevention for LGBTQ+ Communities and Allies on June 15 at 4 p.m. ET and June 25 at...

If you did not catch us live today, here is another option to hear our co-founders discuss our organization’s ethos and current events!

Grassroots Groundwork Expands Peer Support During Mental Health Awareness Month Peer support specialists Francis and Rob are building community-based connections and crisis alternatives through Grassroots Groundwork.

Directed and operated by people with lived experience of having mental illness, our organization aims to improve local crisis response and expand pathways to recovery. We are achieving our mission with three programs: Training & Outreach, IMPACT, and The Nest.

Training & Outreach: Community workshops to improve locals understanding of common experiences of people with mental illness and how to better support people in crisis. Additionally, workshops for members of the community to better understand how to navigate our local mental healthcare system and the various tips and tricks for achieving self-determination.

IMPACT: Collecting data by conducting one-on-one interviews with tri-county locals on their experiences having crisis, navigating the system, and after receiving help. This data informs and enhances our advocacy efforts and overall ability to achieve our organization’s long term goals.

The Nest: Free, dignified, accessible mental health Peer Support services available to adult residents of Clinton, Eaton, and Ingham counties. These services guide participants in deciding what areas of their mental health they want to work on, making goals & objectives, and connecting to the treatment, services, and resources that will enable them to achieve their goals.

Check out our website to learn even more!
www.gglansing.org

It does not take a mental health specialist, a public health expert, a government advisor of any sort to know this would be a likely outcome. Here’s the reality: undignified and inhumane treatment of minorities resulting in su***de doesn’t just occur in ICE concentration camps. Albeit an extreme iteration of what minorities experience, nevertheless

> violence, hate crimes, harassment

> unmet basic needs

> police brutality

> untreated illness

> hopelessness

> resulting in crisis and su***de

is not unique to ICE camps.

The sooner we accept that concentration camps and violence by the hands of the government are inevitable in societies that tolerate racism, the sooner we can take sustainable steps towards reform.

Link to the article: https://www.facebook.com/share/1CWNSHStsx/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Upcoming workshop!

Our mission is to improve local crisis response and expand pathways to recovery. We love providing direct support and advocating for changes, but our work doesn’t stop there. Grassroots Groundwork offers educational opportunities to the community to learn how to better navigate our local mental healthcare system and how to assist those with mental illness.

On Saturday June 20, we are hosting QPR Gatekeeper, a workshop for anyone to learn how to support people thinking about su***de.

We host this workshop periodically and always provide up-to-date info about local options for mental healthcare including crisis services. We also tailor QPR Gatekeeper to the needs we’re seeing the community. In June, this workshop will have information about supporting vulnerable and marginalized people when they are showing signs of crisis or having suicidal thoughts.


QPR Gateekeeper

⏰ Saturday June 20, 10:30 am - noon

📍Via Zoom

Attendees will learn:

> Signs of crisis to look for
> How to ask direct and trauma-informed questions to see if a person if thinking about su***de
> How to provide safe and effective support to a person to prevent su***de
> Local options for addressing the person’s crisis needs
> Considerations when supporting a vulnerable or marginalized person


Cost for our workshops is always donation based with a suggested amount of $15-25. Once you have signed up, you will receive confirmation of your registration and a link for making a donation.

✔️Signup: tinyurl.com/GGQPR

Link to the flyer in the comments

Questions? Email
📩 [email protected]

Another Michigan stabbing where suspect was taken into custody without being killed by police

GRPD: 18-year-old killed in stabbing Police say an 18-year-old was stabbed and killed overnight on Grand Rapids’ southwest side.

Our Peer Support program is hosting its annual fundraising event later this month and they need helping hands! Details in original post by The Nest

We are seeking a few additional helpers for our fundraising event!

Volunteers will:
> attend a Zoom informational meeting Sunday May 24 at 1 pm
> fulfill one role throughout the duration of the event, with a choice of either 9 am - 2 pm, or 10 am - 3 pm
> have lunch provided to them
> be able to use The Nest as a reference for volunteer experience

Funds raised at this event cover new and existing expenses associated with operating our free services! Please send us a message or email [email protected] to let us know you’re interested in helping 💙

Roughly 70% of women and 50% of men in state prisons have mental illness.* Most women in this prison could likely benefit from more appropriate placement, such as in the community with substantial participation in outpatient care, in transitional housing with outpatient care, in residential treatment, or in forensic hospitalization.

The harsh reality is that no matter where marginalized and medically vulnerable people are placed, the conditions they endure are atrocious more often than not.

Transitional Housing and AFCs:
> Humans packed in like sardines
> Unmet basic hygiene and nutritional needs
> Verbal and physical abuse
> Resident income and benefits co-opted by house managers, and house managers demanding higher paying contracts from the state without improving the living conditions
> Bed bugs, mold, no hot water, broken steps, drafty windows

Residential Treatment and Forensic Hospitals:
> Medically inappropriate use of force and confinement
> Verbal and physical abuse
> Heavy antidepressants and antipsychotics used to achieve compliance, rather than to achieve long term recovery

In these conditions, people deteriorate and move farther away from recovery. People die in these conditions. And we don’t hear about it until advocates are raising hell to bring awareness to it.

Marginalized and medically vulnerable people disappear and die in facilities funded by state & federal dollars. Are we ready for a conversation about funding better jails, prisons, homes, and facilities? Are we going to bury our heads in the sand, ignorantly declare “FAFO,” or are we going to demand better for human beings? Because we’re not sardines or subhuman or slaves.

People are going to continue to die if something doesn’t change.

Write to your representative: https://www.house.mi.gov

Write to your senator: https://senate.michigan.gov/senators/all-senators/

Tell them the problem, tell them the problem isn’t going away, and tell them you want change.


*This is an approximation due to varying statistics on this matter, likely due to history of mental illness being self-reported rather than taken from medical records. Which is not a bad thing to us— we believe individuals are the experts of their medical history and healthcare needs.

A woman died suddenly May 17 at Michigan's only prison for women, just four days after another inmate died. A lawmaker wants answers. See link below ⬇️

📸 Salwan Georges, Detroit Free Press

Also on this , we want to highlight the upcoming 2nd Annual KenDucky Derby! Proceeds from this event support our program, The Nest, which provides free mental health Peer Support services to adults residents of the greater 517 area!

Only 2 weeks away! Three rubber ducky races on the Red Cedar River with $75 gift card prizes to Meijer and High Caliber! But that’s not all…

Carnival style games with prizes like
> Candy
> Toys
> $25 gift card to Studio C! cinema
> $25 gift card to ????
> 4 pack of day passes to ????

Follow The Nest to see additional details roll in about vendors, games, and prizes!