Otter Tail County offers free mental health workshop June 6 in Fergus Falls

When a teen or adult in Otter Tail County is struggling with mental illness, families often need more than encouragement. They need to know how diagnosis works, what treatments are available, how to respond in a crisis and where to turn in Fergus Falls the same day.

That is the goal of Hope for Recovery, a free workshop set for Saturday, June 6, from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. at Lake Region Healthcare, 712 S. Cascade St. in Fergus Falls. The event is aimed at families, caregivers, friends and loved ones of a teen or adult living with a mental illness, and it will cover the diagnostic assessment process, treatments, recovery, crisis management, suicide prevention, healthy relationship-building and local resources.

The program is tied to the Otter Tail County Local Advisory Council on Mental Health, part of Minnesota’s county advisory council system. The Minnesota Department of Human Services says those councils give individuals, parents, families and providers a way to influence how mental health care is delivered locally and to advise county and state policymakers based on lived experience. In practice, that makes the June 6 workshop more than an information session. It is a county-level effort to help residents understand the system before they are forced to navigate it during an emergency.

Otter Tail County’s own mental health services pages outline what help is available once a family makes contact. Adult mental health services can include case management, civil commitment, discharge and placement planning, information and referrals, and pre-petition screening. The county also says children’s mental health case management is voluntary and is designed to support both the child and the family as they manage symptoms and behaviors at home, school and in the community.

The workshop arrives as Otter Tail County Public Health continues suicide-prevention work under a four-year Comprehensive Suicide Prevention Grant from the Minnesota Department of Health. The county’s coalition is scheduled to work from July 2023 through June 2027 on mental health promotion and suicide-prevention efforts. Lake Region Healthcare has also partnered with the county on suicide prevention and adopted the Zero Suicide framework, while serving five counties in west central Minnesota and eastern North Dakota.

For immediate crisis help, Lakeland Mental Health Center says its Mobile Mental Health Crisis Response Team serves Clay, Otter Tail and Wilkin counties 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Lakeland has also provided mental health services in Fergus Falls since 1949, giving the city a long-standing base of care as more families look for clear next steps after a diagnosis or a crisis.