Director’s Log | May 2023

By the time this runs in the May 2023 IEI Digest, Memorial Day weekend will have already come and gone. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend while honoring those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for our country. 

We’ve been talking a lot in recent months about workforce development in North Carolina and ways to help underrepresented workers break the barriers that are keeping them from achieving stable employment. With May being mental health awareness month, it’s also important to acknowledge the direct role employment and financial insecurity have on our emotional and mental health. 

According to MetLife’s Employee Benefits Trends Study, 48% of employees say that financial concerns are a cause of lower mental health in 2022-2023. This is up from 31% in 2021-2022. Furthermore, a study released from the National Center for Biotechnology Information earlier this year revealed that higher financial worries were significantly associated with higher psychological distress among U.S. adults. At the 2024 Emerging Issues Forum, we’ll be taking a closer look at financial resilience and ways North Carolinians can better withstand and recover from economic challenges. I look forward to sharing more information about the 2024 forum with you in the coming months.

In the fall of 2020, as part of our ReCONNECT NC series, we focused the state’s attention to the surge of mental health problems reported early in the pandemic.

Through the series, we also highlighted local groups across the state working to address concerns and support the needs of their communities. These include Resources and Reasons to Grow in the northwestern part of the state working to boost the “workforce behind the workforce” by identifying issues relative to wages, health insurance, upward mobility, advocacy, and challenges in the workforce for peer-support specialists—people living in recovery with mental illness and/or substance use disorder who help others whom can benefit from their lived experiences. McDowell County developed an employer program to raise awareness and provides skills training on trauma, resilience and self-care. The REACH Center in Rocky Mount is providing a variety of programs and services to support the mental health and well-being of people in their community, and the Pender County Resiliency Task Force focused on understanding and building the resilience of young people.

There are many more organizations around our state doing important work to improve the mental health and well-being of North Carolinians. I encourage you to learn more about those in your area, and help support them in your own way.

At IEI, we are striving to build a supportive culture where our team is encouraged to take care of their mental and physical health first. We dedicated time in April to reflect upon our own well-being individually and as a team and how we want to show up to support our partners and the communities we serve. For example, our Faith and Community initiative offers a peer network group centered around mental health and can also recommend resources from their partners in the mental health space.

As we embark on this summer season, I hope that everyone is mindful of not only your own personal mental health and well being, but also conscious of creating a North Carolina where everyone can thrive.