Belleville Area Cares Coalition Virtual Event

Belleville Area Cares Coalition, along with six other Dane County Coalitions, is offering a virtual presentation on March 24, 2021, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. “Mental Health Concerning Rural Families During COVID-19”. This virtual presentation will feature Jeff Ditzenberger from T.U.G.S. (Talking, Understanding, Growing, Supporting). The virtual link to this presentation can be found on the Belleville Area Cares Website at www.bellevillewicares.org.
During this time of COVID-19, the Coalitions and its members realize that there has been an impact on our community member’s mental health. We would like to address some of these in our next three forums we are putting together. From our youth to our seniors, we have all experienced something we haven’t been through before. We are hoping these forums will be a starting place to better understand, learn and grow from this shared experience.
T.U.G.S. is a program that focuses on mental health with the belief that basic human kindness can cure many issues, especially mental health. Ditzenberger emphasizes the need for comprehensive mental health care for farmers and all workers within the agricultural-related industries. He formed the T.U.G.S. program based around personal experience of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety. Through his experiences, he wanted to create a program that would help others who struggle to face and deal with their feelings. He points out that mental health is not a phase, rather a struggle for people every single day and he encourages his audiences to think about what people actually deal with every day.
Research found that rural Americans have higher depression and suicide rates as compared to their urban counterparts. In 2020, 19.1% of residents aged 18 and older had a mental illness and 4.9% of rural adults experienced suicidal ideation during that same year. They are also less likely to have access to mental health care services; it was found that for every 30,000 rural Americans there is one psychiatrist. In addition, rural residents are less likely to be able to afford mental health services because of finances and lack of health insurance. One of the main contributions to the prevalence of mental illness in rural America is poverty. With poverty comes stress, hopelessness and depression.