Governor discusses mental health care delivery
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From the Western Governors’ Association
BISMARCK -On the first day of National Suicide Prevention Month, North Dakota Gov.Kelly Armstrong sat down for a discussion about how to deliver robust mental health services across North Dakota and other rural western states.
Armstrong joined Western Governors’ Association (WGA) Executive Director Jack Waldorf as part of WGA’s year-long Health Beyond Healthcare initiative. The event in Bismarck marked the first in a series of governor-led policy workshops on mental health that WGA will host throughout the year.
“Tax policy is important. Infrastructure policy is important. Criminal justice policy is important, but there are very few places in public policy where if you get it right, you actually save lives," Armstrong said.
Drawing on his background as a defense attorney, Armstrong talked about the need to support people with addiction and mental health challenges, instead of funneling these populations into the criminal justice system.
“When I first got involved in politics, I really wanted to prove that being smart on addiction policy was not a partisan issue,” Armstrong said. “I’m not interested in scoring political points, I’m interested in creating durable policy that becomes so popular, nobody wants to get rid of it.”
He also discussed the challenges associated with delivering mental health services in rural areas of North Dakota, and the West more broadly.
“I’m not going to have a child psychologist in Reeder, North Dakota,” he said. “Not tomorrow, not next month, not next year. And so, we have to be able to deliver services as immediately as possible in the best form that we reasonably can.”
To address these challenges, the governor highlighted North Dakota’s robust telehealth buildout, as well as successful programs centered on peer-to-peer counseling. He also called on federal partners to provide small states with maximum flexibility when deploying mental health programs.
Another point of emphasis for the governor centered around the mental health benefits of outdoor recreation, exercise and social connection, especially for young people.
This sentiment was echoed by North Dakota First Lady Kjersti Armstrong during a panel discussion she led on strategies to support youth mental health in the digital age.
"I don’t think we fully appreciate the effects of screen usage and social media for our youth,” Kjersti Armstrong said. “It's not just the direct effects of screen usage that's important to address. It takes away from real-life experiences for youth, and for adults too."
The First Lady was followed by North Dakota Lt. Gov. Michelle Strinden, who led a related panel discussion on policy interventions to improve youth mental health for K-12 students.
Additional Health Beyond Healthcare workshop were to feature panels on integrating behavioral health into primary care; how telehealth, artificial intelligence, digital therapeutics and other innovations are transforming mental health services; and how western states can build and sustain a strong peer support workforce while highlighting federal recommendations to standardize training and certification, establish sustainable financing and expand career pathways.