2008 Stomp Out Stigma Walk for Mental Health

On Saturday, May 17, 2008 at Grand Valley State University - Downtown GR Campus is the 6th Annual Walk for Mental Health! Please help us decrease the stigma and discrimination often associated with mental illness.
Let me know if you would like to walk with us, need more information or would just like to make a donation to the cause.

• Mental illnesses are biologically based brain disorders. They cannot be overcome through "will power" and are not related to a person's "character" or intelligence.
• 1 in 4 adults - approxiamtely 57.7 million Americans - experience a mental health disorder in a given year. 1 in 17 lives with a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, major depression or bipolar disorder, and about 1 in 10 children have a serious mental or emotional disorder.
• Without treatment the consequences of mental illness for the individual and society are staggering: unnecessary disability, unemployment, substance abuse, homelessness, inappropriate incarceration, suicide and wasted lives; The economic cost of untreated mental illness is more than 100 billion dollars each year in the United States.
• An estimated 5.2 million adults have co-occurring mental health and addiction disorders. Of adults using homeless services, 31% reported having a combination of these conditions.
• Fewer than one-third of adults and half of children with a diagnosable mental disorder receive any mental health services in a given year.