Safe Communities

Wisconsin Voices For Recovery is hosting the Rally for Recovery for the 13th year this September!

This annual event brings our recovery community together for a day of connection, celebration, and support. Enjoy resource tables, prizes, overdose prevention supplies and training, free food, and so much more!

📅 Saturday, September 12
📍 Wisconsin State Capitol
⏰ 9 AM–3 PM

Bring your friends, family, and community and join us in celebrating recovery and raising awareness! We hope to see you there! 💜

We are always so honored to celebrate another Madison Area Recovery Initiative program completer! 🎉 Congratulations on this incredible accomplishment! 💜

Join Wisconsin Department of Transportation and partners for an afternoon in the park to highlight transportation safety for drivers, passengers, pedestrians, transit riders, motorcyclists and all transportation system users. Children’s activities, educational booths and demonstrations will highlight the technologies and programs that focus on transportation safety in Wisconsin. Activities include a meet and greet with a State Patrol K-9 team, automated vehicles technology, drone inspections, and work zone traffic control devices, driver education information, and much more. 🚗

Davita and Jim had an amazing time connecting with the community at the Urban League of Greater Madison's Unity Picnic last weekend! 💜

It was an afternoon filled with community partners, delicious food and refreshments, fun activities, live music, valuable resources, and so much more!

We are so honored to be part of this wonderful event every year and grateful for the opportunity to come together with our community. Thank you, ULGM, for another incredible Unity Picnic!

Check out this upcoming training series on preventing deaths of despair! 💙

A Four-Part Training Series for Health Care Providers and Social Workers

"Many deaths linked to su***de, overdose, and alcohol misuse are shaped by underlying factors that often go unseen, including traumatic brain injury, ADHD, chronic pain, and sleep disruption.

This four-part training series explores how these experiences can increase vulnerability and examines opportunities for earlier intervention, stronger prevention efforts, and more compassionate systems of care.

Designed to blend clinical education, systems awareness, and lived experience, sessions will provide practical tools professionals can use to better identify risk, support prevention, and strengthen care across settings.

Prevention begins with recognizing risk, and seeing the whole person behind it."

Sign up and learn more: https://www.newmentalhealthconnection.org/preventing-deaths-of-despair-trainings/

Sending so much love to our community. ❤

Tomorrow's Peers in the Community event has been canceled. We apologize for the late notice!

Take care of one another. 💜

What a wonderful story about one of our amazing community partners! Be sure to check it out! ❤

Lush greenery and bright flowers surround John Short’s longtime Madison home. But the 83-year-old is not the one with a green thumb.

That belongs to a volunteer through Sharing Active Independent Lives (SAIL), who visits regularly to work in Short’s garden. It’s one benefit he receives as a member of SAIL, a nonprofit-run network that helps older adults in Dane County find community and stay independent.

While Short needs yardwork help, he can still drive. So he volunteers those skills, taking fellow members to appointments. Other members help with household chores while tech-savvy volunteers offer computer advice. One woman even volunteers by calling members on their birthdays.

The network of older adults helped pioneer the village model, a national movement that encourages neighbors to support each other as they age in the communities they choose. Dane County members ages 55 and older pay sliding-scale dues to access volunteer services, social activities and a list of vetted service providers.

SAIL launched in 2005 and is considered the country’s second-oldest village model. Now, there are 285 villages, including two others in Wisconsin, according to the Village to Village Network, which brings villages together to share best practices.

Read more from Addie Costello at the link in the comments.

Join the Su***de Prevention & Harm Reduction Coalition (SPHRC) tomorrow, Thursday, July 23, from 3-4:30pm for a Panel of Experts webinar exploring data trends related to mental health and substance use in Dane County.

Hear from experts who are working to better understand and improve the health of our communities.

🔗 Join the webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89736322051

📅 Want a calendar invite? Email [email protected].

We hope to see you there!

Many of us grew up hearing the phrase, "Children should be seen and not heard." While this saying may have once reflected societal expectations, we now understand the lasting harm it can cause. As parents, caregivers, educators, and helping professionals, we recognize the importance of encouraging children to express themselves, share their feelings, and ask for help when they need support.

We frequently tell children to speak up when something feels wrong, seek help when they are struggling, and talk about their emotions rather than keeping them bottled inside. These are important messages. Yet too often, when children do exactly what we ask of them, their concerns are unintentionally minimized, dismissed, or overshadowed by an adult's perspective.

Children and adolescents experience stress, anxiety, sadness, disappointment, and fear in ways that are deeply real to them. While their challenges may seem small when viewed through the lens of adult responsibilities and experiences, they can feel overwhelming within the context of a child's world.

The end of a friendship, being excluded from a group, struggling in school, experiencing conflict at home, or feeling misunderstood can create significant emotional distress. As adults, we may be tempted to view these experiences as temporary or insignificant. However, for a child or adolescent, these situations can feel like profound loss, rejection, fear, grief, or shame. When we dismiss their experiences, we risk teaching them that their feelings are not worthy of attention or support.

A child's voice does not suddenly become valuable when they reach adulthood. Their thoughts, feelings, experiences, and perspectives matter right now.

When we take the time to listen, validate, and respond with compassion, we help children learn that their emotions are important, their struggles deserve support, and they do not have to face challenges alone. More importantly, we show them that using their voice is worthwhile—and that there are trusted adults who will listen when they do.

Because every child deserves to know: Your voice matters. Today, tomorrow, and always.

-Niquanna Barnett MS, LMFT