State of Mind
State of Mind is a theatre-based statewide public dialogue campaign aimed at community listening, tackling stigmas around mental and behavioral health, and normalizing new strategies for care.
What is State of Mind?
From September 2024 to May 2025, State of Mind will bring an interactive theatre and public dialogue event to over twenty (primarily rural) Montana communities. This touring campaign is statewide public engagement- a listening and planning forum co-created with community members across the state and a small group of Montana-based artists/facilitators and mental & behavioral health professionals.
LOCAL IMPACTS
We aim to enhance mental & behavioral health in Montana, particularly for its most vulnerable residents by:
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Making local resources more visible
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Bringing diverse Montana voices into health policy & resource conversations
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Addressing stigmas around ‘seeking help’ through arts-based strategies that build sustainable capacity for communities to talk about and center locally defined notions of care.
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Designing public dialogue around telehealth and other care approaches that bring decision-makers & providers into generative dialogue with residents.
Photo by Steven Cordes, Montana Photographer
SCHOOL OFFERINGS
Care Commitments
Centering Youth Voices
In addition to the touring play, State of Mind is offering free student workshops and professional development opportunities for staff, administrators, and local health service providers.
The school-based offerings connect to the touring play's themes and share the common goal of using creative activity to tackle stigmas and to host and support community conversation around behavioral and mental health. Ideally, a student workshop during the school day is followed by an after-school adult workshop for school and local health personnel. The content will center student-led visions of care, or “Care Commitments”, within school communities.
For Students:
Using creative facilitation, improvisation, story-telling and conversation, students will: imagine what communities of care can look like on their campus and in their community; practice offering and seeking support; break down myths around mental health; gain clarity on local support resources. The workshop results in a “Care Commitments” document, a set of recommendations that adults can use to continue building and providing safe and healthy school policies and practices for every student.
For Staff and Administration:
Using creative facilitation, improvisation, story-telling and conversation, staff and local health providers will: learn and practice new tactics for hosting classroom and campus conversations; bring local mental health professionals and advocates into dialogue with school staff to strategize around resource visibility and accessibility; explore how they can support and amplify the needs and visions expressed in the “Care Commitments” developed in the student workshop.
Why the Arts?
State of Mind will engage in culture work in over twenty communities across Montana
from August 2024- May 2025.
Many believe shifting how we discuss behavioral and mental health across our state could be a meaningful contribution to better health outcomes for all Montanans.
Shifting the conversation could mean community members redefining care together, it could mean residents feeling safe seeking help, it could mean community members sharing responsibility for helping others seek help.
Shifting the conversation requires culture shift. Which requires culture work.