Mental Health
Support local mental health and addiction resources
The Denver Public Schools (DPS) Substance Use Prevention (SUP) Program was created to support schools with prevention and early intervention supports for youth substance use, including a free monthly webinar and powerful prevention programs. The SUP team also spearheads Sources of Strength, a training program that brings peer leaders together in partnership with caring adults to use a fun-filled style of active learning to encourage open discussion about the very real problems that youth face and about the sources of strength that are often helpful for those problems. Clare, board member Lindsey’s daughter, was chosen as a peer leader for Morey Middle School. These resources are invaluable to our family and we are grateful for the additional support SUP provides students.
A powerful and proven resource is Mental Health First Aid (MHFA), an interactive one-day course introducing risk factors and warning signs of mental health problems to build understanding of their impact and review common treatments. We have sponsored over thirty MHFA courses for adults and youth since 2019. Please register for a MHFA course and become empowered!
Hayes Family Mental Health Award
Rotarians for Mental Health provides a direct forum for community members and Rotarians to learn more about mental health. It is a grassroots organization we have supported from inception and its momentum has created a shift in the conversation around mental health and ways to connect stories. With Rotarians for Mental Health, we sponsor a Rotary District 5450 Award to recognize a Rotary Club in District 5450 with a financial contribution to support a new project addressing depression, anxiety and/or addiction. Please view the 2024 application due August 1, 2024.
The 2023 recipient is the Highlands Ranch Rotary Club for their creation of the Colorado Rotary Endowed Fellowship for Pediatric Mental Health at Children’s Hospital. Over time, a cohort of Colorado Rotary Fellows will bolster our state’s mental health clinicians, treating kids from all 64 Colorado counties through recruitment and training of pediatric psychiatry Fellows. The Fellowship will be an endowment that will exist in perpetuity and will have a long-term, high impact effect on Colorado’s pediatric behavior health services by decreasing provider shortages and increasing access for children and teenagers facing depression and anxiety.
The 2022 recipient is again the Boulder Rotary Club for their work with Youth in Recovery, a grassroots program that brings stories of addiction and recovery into high school classrooms to bring awareness and lived experience to young people who are surrounded by an environment of experimentation and substance use. Youth in Recovery has presented to more than 2,000 high school students over the last three years. This Award will promote expansion into other School Districts within District 5450 and throughout Colorado.
The 2021 recipient is the Boulder Valley Rotary Club partnership with Focus Reentry to provide backpacks with clothing, shoes, hygiene items, bus passes, and a smartphone with one-month service. Focus Reentry staff and volunteers also mentor prisoners pre- and post-release to connect them with mental health, housing, and employment resources, connections to build self-sufficiency and support for success in the reentry process, thus, reducing depression, anxiety and/or substance abuse relapse.
The 2020 recipient is the Boulder Rotary Club and their Behavioral Wellness Committee’s commitment to Natural High’s mission and advocacy, specifically the first-ever 12-week summer online program to continue the needed connection and support to teens during this anxious time. This award resonated with us because it is part of Alison Hayes’s story. Alison never finished her degree at CU Boulder and she passed away from complications of alcohol at age 30. Our family had resources (both community and financial) but there was so much we didn't know about depression, anxiety, and using alcohol to cope. We have become educated because Alison's story is forever part of our story. But also because of nonprofits like Natural Highs, which did not exist when Alison was a teenager. We now know so much more about the power of positive peer support, trained addiction counselors, and a community of all ages and experiences talking and sharing their stories.
The 2019 recipient is the Rotary Club of Summit County for its partnership with a grass-roots mental health initiative called Building Hope Summit County. A new-member class of eight led the way, producing brochures providing education on mental health, aiming to reduce the stigma.
The 2018 recipient is the Commerce City Rotary Club’s – Mental Health Initiative new program Just for Veterans and Their Families: Embracing Needs and Removing Barriers, which will bring awareness and connect veterans with education courses, resources, mental health events, and celebrations.