Mental Health Awareness Activities
Gina Lamb, Phillips/Valley Counties
Phillips County kicked off Mental Health Awareness Month with an evening Walk at the Malta High School Football Field, in collaboration with the Malta Elementary School’s Family Safety Night. Walk registrants wrote positive messages on white paper bags that were used as luminaries throughout the event. Volunteers offered ParentingMontana.org information along with Mental Health resources from NAMI and Suicide Prevention resources from the AFSP and 988 Lifeline. T-shirts promoting Mental Health were available for purchase as well. The Walk was organized by Prevention, the Phillips County Hospital and Phillips County Health Department.
EMCMHC has chosen to light up their offices located throughout eastern Montana with green lights in support of Mental Health and “Breaking the Silence”. This includes Malta’s Office, which has lit up the front window at the Malta Business Center. Arena Niebur, owner of T/N Boutique has joined in the support, lighting up the two large windows of her boutique in green as well!
PS Gina Lamb, along with EMCMHC’s Lucy Corbett & Idabelle Sisk, attended the 2025 Alcohol & Drug Symposium hosted by the Yellowstone DUI Task Force, gaining further education on trending drugs, insight into the MT Cannabis Control Division, connections with Canine Mira and other speakers as well.
The Malta Public Schools hosted parent meetings for incoming Freshmen and 6th Grade students for the Fall of 2025, inviting PS Lamb to present the HIPS room at both meetings. This proved to be an excellent time to “catch” a few parents who were unable to peruse the room during P/T conferences earlier in the year.
Malta is hopefully moving forward with the State of Mind experience they’ve had, by hosting a follow-up meeting of the minds who attended the “Coffee & Conversation” portion this past April. All ten participants are eager to take action with the Student Care Commitments and come up with new ideas on interacting with the students to make sure they feel heard.
Valley County hosted a 406 Workforce workshop in Glasgow which PS Lamb attended, learning positive ways to communicate with “customers, clients, patients, co-workers,” etc. Lamb believes this workshop would be very useful for high school students and has made a connection with the MT Dept of Labor & Industry to discuss the possibility of making it available to high school students next school year.
The Valley C.A.R.E. Coalition along with the Valley County Health Dept are working on hosting the annual Mental Health Awareness Walk in Glasgow on June 14th. PS Lamb plans to be on site with a table full of resources.