You may have seen this on the news. Would you like to join me in an online dialogue about it?

Yesterday, in hosting the day-long National Conference on Mental Health, the White House advanced its multi-pronged initiative to raise awareness of—and remove the stigma from—mental illness. The initiative includes, among other elements, a new website (mentalhealth.gov) that points to resources for people with mental illness and shares success stories.

There’s also a dialogue going on. That’s where you and I come in.

Creating Community Solutions is a series of events around the U.S. that will allow people to engage in discussion and action on mental health issues. Part of this dialogue is taking place online now. I’m helping to moderate the conversation in which people share their experiences with mental health.

Already we’ve had people share some powerful stories about mental illness. We’ve heard one woman’s lessons learned from wrestling with bipolar disorder, the challenges for students facing their first days of college, and the tale of an RN that showed an eighth-grade class the link between mental illness and homelessness.

Getting Started

You may have something to say about mental health. If you do, I would love to hear your voice in these conversations. Start by registering for The Civic Commons website (the host for this and many other conversations) and then come on over to http://theciviccommons.com/issues/mental-health-initiative.

For me, this is personal: I’ve wrestled with mental health issues all my adult life, so the chance to move this dialogue forward is near and dear to my heart. Do feel free to join me there.