Speaker 1 00:02 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:03 <inaudible>
Speaker 0 00:36 So we'll bring you it's
Speaker 3 00:37 Into ideas about and discussions on disability topics. This is Kathy I'd 90.3 FM Minneapolis, and one Oh six up not one Oh six kfb.org. Thanks to Charlene doll. Who's my research team. It takes a team of people to keep up with her and Matt Finkel. Who's my engineering expertise. On this episode, a couple of reminders. We have an email list. You may email
[email protected]. If you'd like to be on the email or just find out what's going on around you also this week, we have Matt or sack and Jensen and Mariah Larkin, and they're with me tonight. And we're talking about fidgety fairytales and the launching of their new online magazine and podcast created by youth to raise awareness about mental health. And this is called, um, voices of experience. Thanks for being with me this week, guys.
Speaker 0 01:41 Yeah. Thank you so much for having some show.
Speaker 3 01:44 Yeah, we're happy to be here. Excellent. All right. Um, well, can we start out by getting a little bit of history about you guys and how you decided to do something like this and what you do with this digital fairytale?
Speaker 0 02:00 Um, sure. Um, uh, Fiji fairytales, the mental health musical has been going since 2008. Um, what we do is we take familiar fairytales and reimagine them so that the main character has a mental health disorder. And we do that as a way to raise awareness about, uh, children's mental health and, um, by illustrating some of the common symptoms, um, and, uh, different strategies for coping with, uh, and managing disorders. Um, but then also really to help, uh, communities like friends, family, um, uh, schools, communities, imagine what it looks like to be, um, to be compassionate and supportive of, uh, a child with a mental health disorder, because I think a lot of people, uh, want to be supportive and they don't always know how. And so we try to help them imagine that.
Speaker 4 03:05 And how about you, Maria? Yeah, so, um, I am mainly, I'm not working on fidgety fairytales. That's all, that's all not expertise. Um, I both have a background in theater, but that is, um, separate from what I'm doing at Makena, which is more so with the voice of experience projects and our work with youth with Minnesota. Um, so youth voices of experience, the podcasts, the magazine, and the website all come from, um, useless Minnesota, where the local branch of a nationwide organization called youth move national, um, that advocates for youth led systems change. Um, and all of the work that we're doing to that is happening to the Minnesota system of care grant project with the department of human services. And I'm the youth engagement specialist on that project. And so, um, you've moved Minnesota has been our way of, uh, really trying to encourage groups to get started across the state. Um, so that, you know, these conversations are happening more frequently and those you can be, uh, educating members of the community and hopefully having an influence, um, education system, mental health care system, um, juvenile justice and child welfare in the communities.
Speaker 3 04:22 Let's talk about where we are today. Um, obviously we have a pandemic going on. So how have you had to adjust, what does this look like for you during this time?
Speaker 0 04:35 Yeah. Um, well with, with fidgety fairytales, our performances are, um, they're performed by youth, uh, ages 10 to 18, and we tour them all over the state. We do performances all over the state and we were in the middle of rehearsing our production that was going to tour all over, uh, starting in April and that, um, that could not happen. So, um, we had to, we had to figure out what we were going to do. And one of the stories, uh, is called chicken little, and it was a, it's a story about managing catastrophizing thoughts and, um, and kind of like when your thoughts start to spin out of control, um, and you're worried yeah. Anxiety and, and your, and your worries and, and, um, uh, like your worries, just keep getting bigger and bigger that, um, there are ways, ways that you can, um, manage that.
Speaker 0 05:33 Um, and so we thought that that was a really relevant topic with so much uncertainty happening with the, um, with the pandemic. And, um, so we decided to, um, create a video, a puppet show adaptation instead, um, so that, so that people could still see the story. Um, and we had to rewrite a little bit. Um, so because sometimes people are worried about things that really are dangerous or really are a big deal. Um, and so we had to kind of take that into account as we were writing the story and, um, you know, what do you do when you do your, you manage your anxieties and something is still dangerous, then, then what happens? And then it's about cutting out the extra worries so that you can focus on what's important and, and making, applying, um, so the, with the actors we couldn't, um, we couldn't rehearse together.
Speaker 0 06:30 We couldn't rehearse together. Um, uh, we couldn't record the lines together. So all the actors we rehearsed via zoom, uh, a couple of times. And then, um, fortunately we'd already, um, we were already about halfway through our rehearsal process, so we had a good, we had a good headstart and, um, and so we were able to, um, send everybody off to record their, their lines and, you know, uh, you know, help them try to set up a recording studio in their rooms or in their closets or wherever it was going to be good acoustically, um, and then, uh, record their lines and then we put it all together. Um, and then since we couldn't have the live performances, we, we turned it into a puppet show.
Speaker 3 07:19 I presume that someday somebody's going to come out with a book saying where I recorded my zoom unique, you'll find all sorts of rooms that people use. How did you decide, or how do you identify, you know, what mental health topic for your performances? Like, what are you going to cover?
Speaker 0 07:40 Yeah. Um, well, um, for each of our shows, we've done, we've done 12 different productions so far, and each time we do three different stories, uh, three different fairytales or fables or, uh, Greek myths. And, um, sometimes the, the story kind of tells us what it kind of lends itself to a mental health disorder. Um, and we kind of let the story guide us, um, into like what kind of themes and what kind of, uh, disorder to work with. And sometimes we, we get, um, Mike, uh, I work with a composer and lyricist, her name is Maria Hart. And, um, she, uh, she and I kind of, um, and adapt these stories together. And sometimes as we're thinking about the new show, um, we, we think about like, what, what are things, uh, what are, what are things that are in kind of like the general conversation at the moment about, about mental health.
Speaker 0 08:39 And, and then we look for a story that can help with that. Um, with this w with our recent show, uh, we were, uh, the, we wrote the catastrophizing story before, um, before the pandemic, um, and then adapt it a little bit more, but it was kind of interesting that we had already had it written. Um, and then this, the story that we're working on now on adapting now is the tortoise and the Hare. And in our, in our version, the hair has depression and it doesn't, and it climbs under, uh, during the race climbs, you know, over to a tree and falls asleep, uh, because they, they feel nothing. And they, you know, they feel a deep sense of nothing ness and, um, no energy, um, and, um, which I think, uh, and, and, and the, the point of that story is the tortoise kind of encourages the hair to like, let's, let's go for a walk, let's get out in nature. Let's just a little bit of exercise. Can, can give your mood a boost. And which also seems really relevant right now has, you know, I think a lot of people are struggling with depression, you know, because of the, because of where we are right now. And, um, and getting outside can help with that. So it's been interesting, like our, our, our, the show that we wrote, it seemed very with, without knowing what the world was going to be like, um, ended up being really relevant,
Speaker 3 10:12 Dear performance, and often have a connection with a mental health issue in your shows
Speaker 0 10:20 With, um, mental health, um, kind of,
Speaker 3 10:24 Yeah, but like, so if you, if in regards to like the ticket and little, did you have, did your performance have specific anxiety stuff? Did you feel like the people who are involved in that show, they were dealing with anxiety issues and that's why they, you chose them for that show.
Speaker 0 10:42 They act the cast, um, you know, we have, we have auditions and, um, we never, actually, we never actually ask people to the, um, the actors to identify whether or not they have the mental health disorder when, uh, when at the audition. So we don't, we don't make a, we don't choose, uh, based on that. Um, and, uh, it, it are, um, there's, there's a there's, um, I think, uh, actors with mental health disorders are kind of drawn to this work, um, because it's a chance for, um, it's a chance to advocate for themselves to raise awareness about something that they're struggling with. And, um, uh, and, and also a chance to be, um, uh, to be with others that are going, you know, to, to be with a cast of other of other actors that are struggling with similar things. So we don't select, uh, based on that, but, um, but the cast does tend to have several actors that are, that are struggling with some of the same things.
Speaker 3 11:56 What's the biggest mental health, um, disorder or topic that you've addressed in your show.
Speaker 0 12:03 Um, wow, we've done, we've done 36 different stories now, so we've, we've covered, we've covered a lot. Yeah. Um, the ones that we keep coming back to our anxiety, um, I think that's, um, I think that one is a very common, um, thing that people struggle with anxiety and depression. Um, we've, we've talked about trauma several times and each time we do a new story, we kind of, we try to look at a different angle, um, or a different aspect of it. Um, yeah, but I, I think those are, those are kind of the big three. We've also done several stories about autism, um, which isn't necessarily, um, a mental health disorder, but, um, uh, and, um, I, and I think a lot of people on the spectrum do struggle, um, with anxiety and depression, um, uh, kind of, um, that it, it, it, that occurs at a higher rate for people on the autism spectrum,
Speaker 3 13:13 Realizing that there's, this is youth better doing your performances, but are there any controversial topics that you've dealt with or diving in delving into? And, and people said afterwards, you know, that was really great, but boy, that was really uncomfortable.
Speaker 0 13:30 Okay.
Speaker 3 13:30 Have you ever had any of those?
Speaker 0 13:32 Um, I, gosh, I don't know if we've, if we've ever been really, I don't know if we've ever had like a controversial reaction to, to it. Um, we really tried to, um, and in our work when Maria and I are adapting the stories, we really try to work on how do we make this information accessible to people. Um, and this, you know, these are 15 minutes stories, you know, we're not delving into like a ton of detail, but it, you know, they're really meant to kind of start a conversation there, a safe way for families and for classes and stuff to like, I have a safe way to begin talking about something or to, to begin thinking about, about something, about a, about a disorder or, or a mental health issue.
Speaker 3 14:30 I wanted to talk a little bit about the, you know, how you are distributing or promoting your virtual performances. And I think was ticking a little, the first one that you did this with,
Speaker 0 14:42 It is, yes, this is the first time. And so we, um, we really had to like switch gears pretty quickly. Um, so, um, we were in the middle of rehearsal and switched to this online format and we, uh, you know, in the middle of March and, um, we're able to get a done, and we published it on YouTube on May 7th, which is, um, which was a children national children's mental health awareness day. Um, so in just about six weeks, we kind of re re-imagined our whole programming and, um, and, and shifted to an online format. Um, so it's, it's available on YouTube. Um, it's also available on our, on our websites. Um, so the fidget fairytales is a project of the Minnesota association for children's mental health. Sorry, I'm going to start an association for children's mental health, um, which is an advocacy and family support organization. And so, um, the video is housed. Um, there, you can find it there. Um, that website address is www.macmh.org/fidgety. Um, and then it's also on, um, uh, one of our other programs is youth move Minnesota, and that's a, that's a youth led, um, uh, youth advocacy organization. And we that same day, we also launched the youth move website. So you can also find it. You can also find it there.
Speaker 3 16:18 Let's talk a little bit about chicken little. That was your first, as you said, performance, that you did online, promoting that online. Um, what was this like to do that? And talk a little bit about set up the premise, because I want to play something from it, but go ahead and
Speaker 0 16:39 A little bit about the story. Um, yeah, probably no, but yeah, right. Well, the original story is that, um, uh, an acorn drops on chicken Little's head and chicken, little mistakenly thinks that the sky is falling and, and starts running around and telling everybody you're telling goosey Lucy, the sky is falling. The sky is falling and lucky. The sky is falling and Turkey lurky, the sky is falling. And pretty soon all the animals are, um, all the animals are frantic and trying to find someplace to hide. And they run into Foxy laxy who says, Oh, it's safe. And my dad and you come, come hang out in McDaniel, be safe, and then proceeds to eat them all the end.
Speaker 0 17:23 So we had, um, so we had that anyway. Yeah, yeah. Um, so, so we changed it and, um, the, where the chicken little still, you know, and it's this idea of like this, this worry that just keeps getting bigger and bigger. And, um, so, but the, but the, the other, the other animals of figure out, you know, before it's too late, before they're devoured that we know what's going on and they, and they make sure that every, you know, the chicken little and everybody is safe and then taking little recognizes that her worries are getting out of control. And so she goes to see a therapist were pissed and,
Speaker 3 18:08 And her starts out by she's practicing for a baseball game, right?
Speaker 0 18:13 Yeah. Yep. They're all on a softball team. So
Speaker 3 18:16 Yeah. Softball and it comes up and falls down and she doesn't realize that was really the foot, the softball that fell on her.
Speaker 0 18:23 Right? Yep. Yes.
Speaker 3 18:26 So let's hear the, the piece with that when she discovers,
Speaker 5 18:33 Where did it go? If I, and it didn't come down, then it must've gone till it hit the sky. It fit by then it cracked this sky. If the sky is cracked, you see loosey goosey, Hey man, what's the rush. I am seeking shelter rapidly. Why the sky is falling off my head. And soon we will be <inaudible> we gotta get outta here. Your telling me, Hey, guys, want to play, catch, catch Turkey. Lurky at a time, like, this seems like as good a time as any, you don't understand.
Speaker 3 19:54 So eventually she goes to therapist were pissed and she helps her pick apart, you know, these things. So she can kind of stop and think about which she really needs to be worried about.
Speaker 0 20:08 Yeah. Yeah. And just, and kind of how to interrupt those worries. Um, so, so that they don't keep spinning out of control. Um, so she, she gives her a few different strategies. One is to just say out loud stop and that kind of disrupts the thought process. And then, um, uh, another, another tool to use as the best friend test where you imagine, you know, if your best friend was in this going, you know, worrying about the same thing, what, what advice would you give them? Because I think sometimes we're, we can, we can be and, uh, with, with other people, with our friends and we are with ourselves, um, and more understanding. And so, um, just kind of, she can begins to imagine, you know, like, Oh, if some, you know, ducky lucky was experiencing this, I would, I would help. I would help them see, like, no, it's not, it doesn't have to be as bad as you're imagining.
Speaker 3 21:10 So listening to her with therapists were pissed. We started, you know, started thinking about, well, what have you guys ever thought about? Cause it was almost a creative, interactive thing, you know? Right. She was having her teaching her a little trick that taught her to stop, you know, when she was spinning out of control and then starting to pick apart things and giving her some ideas, like, what would happen if this, if you do this, then what would happen if you did this? Um, did you ever consider creating like an interactive performance online that would, you know, that maybe people could go on with certain mental disorders and kind of do that kind of constructive work around? Okay.
Speaker 0 21:58 That would be interesting. Yeah. I did
Speaker 3 22:00 Almost like a game.
Speaker 0 22:02 Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, I don't know. That would be, it would be, it would be an interesting project attack though. And I think, you know, with this, with this next period, this next period of time where live performance, isn't really going to be an option. I think we're going to get creative. And what does, what does performance look like? And that would be a really interesting format to play with.
Speaker 3 22:29 Yes, I think so. And it would be fun to, um, revisit that if you guys decide to do that, I wonder, is, is funding difficult at this time? You know, getting funding and convincing people. Yes. You should still fund us because we're still doing something.
Speaker 0 22:48 Yeah. It's um, you know, a lot of our, we've been really fortunate, the, um, the Minnesota state arts board and the metropolitan regional arts council, um, have really supported fidgety fairytales over the years. And, um, and so we we've had, you know, right now we've, we've had a few grants that have, um, that have helped support, uh, what, you know, this, this current period and, uh, this, you know, what we're doing at the moment, but kind of going forward. I think a lot of, um, funding is going to change. And so we're, we, we don't quite know how that's going to, to play out yet. And there's, there are a lot of things that really need to be, um, that where it's really, that that's really important to fund, and this is going to shift funding priorities. And so it'll be interesting to see what, uh, what the, what the next phase is and how, um, and how we continue.
Speaker 3 23:47 So you're addressing a lot of young people online. And I'm wondering, where do you go, um, for your professional advice on your mental health solutions,
Speaker 0 23:59 Um, as, as we're developing, um, as we're developing the stories, uh, we, we have several, um, several people on the, um, on the staff of the Minnesota association for children's mental health that are, um, that are mental health experts. And so, you know, as Maria and I are adapting the stories, we're running ideas past people and, and getting, um, and, and getting ideas for how to, you know, what kind of strategies to use or, um, uh, how, how can we, how can we illustrate this, this aspect of this disorder? Um, so we're, we're really fortunate to have, um, you know, just that our organization is able to support us because Maria and I are not mental health professionals. We're, I'm a teaching artist and a writer and a choreographer and, and Maria is a composer and a lyricist, you know? So, um, um, so it, it's great for us to have that mental health, uh, backup, you know, and, and insight as we're developing it.
Speaker 3 25:09 I want to start out by talking about the new, um, voices of experience. Mariah bet. You can time in here I can, is youth it's done by youth voices of experience, correct?
Speaker 4 25:27 Yeah. It's all, um, all of the stuff that's featured in the magazine, the podcast, um, even some sections of the website are all created, uh, by and for use.
Speaker 3 25:39 Tell me a little bit about this. How does it work? How often do you do it?
Speaker 4 25:43 Yeah, absolutely. So youth voices of experience really came out of, um, this pandemic and then the adjustments that we needed to make, um, to program, like we said, of youth with Minnesota, um, which is made up of nine different chapters across the state, as well as the youth advisory council. Um, and how we've been operating up until now was, um, we would be, we would, we would fund these groups and support them needing biweekly, um, starting to have more open conversations about mental health and, um, systemic issues. Um, and when, and we had been planning to have these bigger networking events for the different group members to all meet and hopefully to start to build up advocacy skills so they can be going and speaking to members of the legislature. And when COVID happened, we decided that we needed to make a shift that makes something checked quickly, so that the youth who were involved with and who are involved in, um, Minnesota programs are able to still feel some sense of connection. And so Matt and I, when we originally started, she sort of revamped easily with Minnesota. We had talked about really wanting there to be an Avenue for artistic expression, but we were struggling with how to fit that into the initial concept for the program and this
Speaker 4 27:17 Countless new challenge, you know, provided us with another opportunity to create a space for the suppression. And so that's how we decided on the podcast and the magazine and the website to host y'all. So basically we decided that we wanted to have it be collaborative. And so we recruited some professional artists that we know in the twin cities to serve as mentors to each of the youth artists. And then we sent out a flyer to, um, organizations and providers that we know, and then just where the disease, if people buy it and they started to apply, uh, it was really important to us to make sure that all youth who are working with us were creating permissions, um, for any medium are receiving, that are receiving a commission, are being paid for their work. That was something that was very important to both of us, uh, as people who are also working artists, uh, we really wanted to highlight the fact that there, that the youth who are contributing to this are being vulnerable, they sharing their stories, they're sharing their experiences, uh, and they're putting a lot of time and energy and effort into it.
Speaker 4 28:32 And we really want to celebrate that and pay them for that. Um, so we have released our first episode and issue and are working on our second one. Um, and that will be coming out, uh, end of June, beginning of July.
Speaker 3 28:51 How did you decide which people or things, topics you wanted to have in the first issue?
Speaker 4 28:58 We really haven't done any like, um, like special selection of the people who have applied so far, everybody who has applied if they fit within the age range that we're, um, that we're looking to, to create a platform for they've been featured. And it's been really incredible to see that, you know, we don't really have to, um, we're, we're really trying to focus on letting them share what it is that they want to share. Um, and so in the first episode and issue, we hear about, you know, how different generations of the same family talk about and approach mental health issues. We hear about, um, dealing with addiction, we hear about, um, and then in the magazine we see, uh, accounts of doing with bipolar, um, disorder and, uh, the effects of toxic masculinity and depression and bullying. And so it's really a wide, a wide range of things. And I think that that's ultimately, what's more important to us is just highlighting the things that young people are wanting to talk about and not try to put our own narrative on it. Um, cause I think it's all relevant. It's all important
Speaker 3 30:18 Is the magazine different than the podcasts, like,
Speaker 4 30:24 Um, it's just, it's just a friendly format to be able to feature, uh, more kinds of art, so visual item, right. And things like that. Yeah.
Speaker 3 30:34 Let's see. Well, if, um, if my engineer has it, I have a piece that was done in one year in the podcast. Um, can you set it up for us, Matt? You know, which one I'm talking about? The song that was
Speaker 0 30:49 Yes. There's um, this was, um, music, um, composition by Taylor Nebel, uh, and yeah. Um, she was really interested in making, um, making a piece of music that people could listen to when they wanted to find a sense of calm. And she talked about that, you know, um, not a lot of times like calming music is about sounds of nature and seven. She said she felt like not everybody, um, not everybody has that reaction to nature. And so she wanted to, she wanted to create a piece of music, um, that would, uh, another route to finding a sense of calm. Okay. I have it all queued up.
Speaker 3 31:38 Let's do it.
Speaker 7 31:41 <inaudible>
Speaker 9 32:01 <inaudible> <inaudible> <inaudible> <inaudible>.
Speaker 2 33:42 Mmm.
Speaker 3 33:45 Very, very nice. I really found that piece to be pretty peaceful. Um, did Taylor write that herself?
Speaker 0 33:56 Yes, she did. Um, she, she wrote it and recorded it herself.
Speaker 3 34:03 Very nice. Dab. I wonder. Um, do you guys also talk about a lot about bullying? Can you bullying prevention? Can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 0 34:17 Yeah. Um, uh, another, another aspect of, of what we're of this whole, um, suite of things that we're launching, the, the youth voices of experience magazine and the podcast and the, um, and fidgety fairytales, it's all, it's all kind of, um, it's, it's all different, uh, tactics to are different ways, different languages to talk about mental health. And, um, the, the other part of this is our, um, our bullying prevention program, which is called the safe guard, um, which is, um, a team of superheroes that have nonviolent super powers, uh, that they, that they use to, um, uh, to address bullying. Uh, and so for our, for our next installment of youth voices of experience, we have a, um, we have two teens, one is an art visual artist, and one is a writer and they're working on writing a story with these, with these, um, those cast of superheroes that we've created, um, a story about bullying prevention. And so, um, it won't quite be a comic book. It'll be more like an illustrated story. Um, but, but we're, we're using that comic book superhero genre to talk about the, um, about bullying and the effects that it can have and, and how it can impact people's mental health and, um, and how, and how we can and how we as a community can work on preventing bullying.
Speaker 3 35:56 Do you think that people with mental health disorders are, have a higher percentage or higher chance of being bullied?
Speaker 0 36:07 Yes. Yes. Um, absolutely. Um, I, I don't remember the statistic, but, um, uh, people with mental health disorders are more likely to be bullied. They're also more likely to be victims of violence. Um, so, um, yes, it's definitely an issue,
Speaker 3 36:27 Presumably that they can be the ones who are doing the bullying as well, but maybe not realize that that's what they're doing.
Speaker 0 36:35 Yep. It can go the other way too. Um, and so, but, but I do know that, um, the, that, um, people with mental health disorders are victims of bullying at a higher rate than the general population.
Speaker 3 36:51 When you do the story that you're going to do on this, will you be performing it on your podcast as well?
Speaker 0 36:58 Um, I, um, it, we don't know if it's going to be, it's kind of has its own little home on her website. Um, but we, um, it is going to be the story of we printed, but then we also have some of our actors that have been involved with fidgety fairytales, um, uh, that are going to perform that, that will, that will perform the story. So it will be, uh, available by audio as well.
Speaker 3 37:25 Can you, um, give us the URL of where people can go to hear and read about voices of experience?
Speaker 0 37:35 Sure, right.
Speaker 3 37:37 Yeah. They can go to WW dot youth move dash M n.org. Can you get that once more please? Yeah. WW dot use move and sorry, use move dash N n.org. Presumably two W's right. Www that three W's right? Yes. All. Alright. So if you make sure you hand that back to me on the email, I'll make sure that that gets posted so people can know where to go. Can you talk a little bit about, um, youth move, minnesota.org? Yeah. So, uh, using the Minnesota, like we talked about with our youth program and we wanted to, um, actually in our first meeting with our youth advisory council, uh, the idea of creating website with something
Speaker 4 38:36 That several of them brought up and were really excited about, uh, they wanted it to serve as a place for, um, for finding resources, for connecting with other people, for finding out, um, just what's going on, what events are happening, um, that are related to the work that we're doing. And we didn't really have the opportunity to create the website at that time. Um, but once again, we shifted everything online to, um, to adjust for COVID. That was the perfect chance to go ahead and actually make that happen and build it in a way that it was going to be able to support, um, these other different, uh, avenues. So including the media, including the podcast and the magazine, um, and hopefully it will, as <inaudible> continues to grow, become a place that a full of, um, additional local resources for youth, um, will provide more information about local events happening in communities across the state. Um, we're really excited to see all of the, all the different ways that it can, that it can grow and change, um, and be responsive to the needs of youth.
Speaker 3 39:49 I noticed, I think if I read correctly, um, you guys deal with ages 12 through adult. Um, I'm wondering why you decided to pick that age because, I mean, presumably there's children much younger who do express, um, mental health disorder.
Speaker 4 40:12 Yeah, thanks. Yeah. For, for things like users and specifically for voices of experience, we wanted to focus on, um, on slightly older youth, I think that's something that can be very shells does really well, is provide, um, it provide content for, uh, not only middle school, but also like elementary age children. Um, and then really, uh, Maxima has its own instance in early childhood, uh, uh, departments. And I think that moving forward, we'll all be excited to find ways that we can, um, intertwine our work so that it's not, it's not quite as separated. Um, and also I think that there's, uh, there's a pretty significant difference in how we approach, um, working with much younger children versus, um, working with slightly older youth. But you're absolutely right. That is certainly prevalent as mental health challenges in younger children as well.
Speaker 3 41:11 I wonder, um, certainly there has been changes and things with education and mental health in regards to the education part of things. Have you, what kind of differences or hardships have you seen with the education and mental health piece during this pandemic and where everyone was kind of online for
Speaker 4 41:34 Everything? Yeah, it's certainly been a challenge. Um, a lot of the youth that we work with have experienced feelings, um, feeling frustrated by it and feeling like it is difficult to, um, maintain a sense of connection or for that sense of connection to feel particularly genuine. Um, that's the one to note that zoom fatigue is a real thing, the way that our brains, uh, calculate, uh, communicating with people when we are there with them in person is different than, um, than doing that on a computer where your brain is kind of having to fill in a lot of gaps. And so I think that has been a big challenge for young people. That's the census, the team. Um, and yeah, I think that it's, it's definitely not at all the same thing. Um, and I think that we'll see, we will continue to see an impact of, um, of these changes for, for awhile.
Speaker 0 42:37 Yeah. And I think part of, um, uh, why we wanted to put out, put this magazine and this podcast out as an opportunity for youth is that I think creating things can be, um, can, can be helpful to people's mental health. And so we wanted to be able to provide a way for people that work on, on creative projects, uh, during this time to maybe hopefully help a little bit with that.
Speaker 4 43:04 Mariah, can you talk a little bit about the care project, the system of care? Yeah. So thank you. Yeah, absolutely. The, so the funding that we get to, uh, to run the abuses in a federal program and which is experience, uh, youth voices of experience comes from the system of care grant that we are working on with, uh, the Minnesota department of human services and its system of care. Yeah. So this is not care, is this concept of creating a children's mental health care system that aims to sort of reduce the siloing of different, um, different services and different, um, aspects that a child with high needs, um, might be involved with. So that means, so basically the way that it is now, um, the school function separately from the, uh, mental health professional, who might be working with that young person and that, and if that young person is also say involved in, um, foster care system, then that's, uh, then there's like all these different approaches to, um, supporting that child's needs.
Speaker 4 44:17 And all of those different things are happening separately. So with a system of care aims to do is bring all of those people together so that a child's needs are being met through a system of care and not through these sort of siloed individual, um, individual things that might contradict each other or not support each other. Um, and ultimately the goal is to make accessing mental health care services significantly easier for Minnesota families. Um, sort of one of the prime examples of a children's mental health system of care is in New Jersey. Um, it took them about 20 years to build, but it's at a point now where there is a single phone number that families have to call, and if they have a child who's, um, who's experiencing a mental health crisis and within an hour, um, a mobile crisis team that is trained specifically to work with youth.
Speaker 4 45:16 And I think that's an important thing to note. We do have some developments with mobile crisis, mobile crisis response teams here in Minnesota, but most of them are trained to work with adults and not with children. Um, and so when New Jersey you have these teams that can be, um, sent to homes, um, within an hour of receiving the call and they don't have to provide information about, um, insurance about, uh, you know, previous involvement with mental health services or, um, or other sort of youth serving organizations. And they are given the help that they need. And, um, are in New Jersey, specifically focused on a system called wraparound, um, which is a service model for how, um, how all of those different, uh, pieces can, can work together and the idea to model after that model. Um, I think in some ways, yes. Uh, because it sounds like a great model.
Speaker 4 46:18 It does. Yeah, absolutely. And we're really lucky to have, um, Liz Manley who did a lot of that work, um, coaching us here as we, uh, as we're developing the Minnesota model. Um, and I think right now we're only working with 13 counties, regions, um, and one tribe. And we want to make sure that as we're working in each of these communities, that it's really specific to their needs. Um, and if that ends up being similar to, um, to what the needs for our New Jersey, then I think that absolutely will head in that direction. Um, yeah, it's, it's a very slow and arduous process to get all of the right people talking to each other and collaborating in the right way. And the biggest, um, the biggest part of, um, the care is that we want to build systems that are used driven, family led, um, culturally responsive and, uh, community based.
Speaker 4 47:21 Uh, a lot of what we see here in Minnesota is if children are removed from their homes because of the mental health crisis, they are oftentimes sent to, um, to longterm care facilities that are, uh, not in their community that are potentially several hours away. Um, and that can be really disruptive and challenging. And so one part, one of the parts of us that we're ending to really shift is, uh, keeping young people in their communities and bringing the supports that are needed to them in their homes, in their school, um, so that they have what they need to succeed.
Speaker 3 48:02 Can you give me the URLs again for fidgety fairytales and also youth, um, that youth voices of experience? Yeah. Everything can be
[email protected]. All right. Thank you so much. I appreciate you guys coming on. Um, it's been great and I wish you good luck with the whole internet virtual performances. I think we're going to have that longer than we know, and I, I think everyone would benefit from watching a little bit of good theater online. Um, this has been disability and progress would be as expressed on the show are not necessarily those of cafe or its board of directors. My name is Sam I'm the host of this show. Charlene doll is my research team. Matt Thinkful is the current brilliant engineer of this episode. We've been speaking with Matt Organa, sack Jensen and Mariah Larkin, and they were talking about fidgety fairytales and the launching of a new online magazine and podcast created by youth to raise awareness about mental health called voices of experience. This is Kathy I 90.3, FM, Minneapolis and cafe that O R D fresh fruit is up. Thanks so much for listening. Good night and stay here.
Speaker 2 49:25 <inaudible>.
