CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Sunday is World Mental Health Day, which aims to raise awareness about the prevalence of mental health issues.
But with a welcomed push for de-stigmatizing mental illnesses comes a wave of more people seeking help. And during a pandemic that's amplified many people's struggles and created barriers to care access, Alexa James said the work has become challenging.
"What COVID really outlined for us was a significant breakdown in our social service safety net," James, CEO of Chicago's branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, told WBBM Newsradio. "So we were never at a capacity to begin with, to fulfill the needs and demands of folks, and it just got so much more amplified during COVID."
She said that the COVID-19 pandemic created an uptick in fear-based mental health problems.
"We have a lot of people on waitlists, like for months and months and months to get into treatment. It shouldn't be that way," James said.
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And she said that awareness is only part of the conversation because mental health literacy is also important.
"We just don't, as a community, have a huge education around what it looks like to see someone who's struggling, or see somebody who's thriving, and then how to respond,” James continued.
But James explained that she’s happy with the increased funding toward mental health in Chicago, and she's hopeful that as preventative care becomes more accessible, crises won't be as common.
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