by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

April 2, 2009

A new campaign to increase understanding and dissolve stigmas surrounding mental illness is being launched by the Jewish Family Service of MetroWest NJ, a partner agency of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest, NJ in collaboration with the Mental Health Association of Essex County.

The initiative is a website called “Gotblue.org” — modeled after the dairy industry’s “Got Milk?” advertising blitz.

The site will lead patients and their families to clinical and community resources and help “create a greater understanding of how mental illnesses can be recognized and treated,” explained Robert Davison, executive director of the county Mental Health Association.

Davison was among the speakers at a kick-off news conference Monday at the AVL Events Center at the Lowenstein Sandler law firm in Roseland.

“We are hoping that community organizations and religious and civic groups will link to this website and take its materials to their constituencies,” said JFS executive director Reuben Rotman. Making that process possible is a grant from the Russell Scott Atkind Memorial Philanthropic Fund of MetroWest’s Jewish Community Foundation.

Atkind, a 30-year-old computer science teacher and jazz musician, took his own life in 2006 after a long struggle with depression.

His mother, Marsha Atkind, executive director of the NJ Healthcare Foundation, spoke movingly of his life and illness.

She told the audience his suicide “was not a spur-of-the-moment decision, but rather the result of the utter helplessness that had overcome him — the total lack of belief that things could get better.”

“This warm, passionate, empathetic young man with a keen sense of social justice became so troubled and so silent, virtually disappearing into an abyss of depression,” she said.

Atkind was named the chief executive at the Healthcare Foundation in December; prior to that she was manager of Women’s Philanthropic Initiatives at United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ.

“Since Russ died, I’ve been approached by so many people whose relatives have taken their own lives,” she said. “Most of these conversations were behind closed doors in my office, telling me in private what they couldn’t say in public — that their family was the victim of a suicide. No one who suffers from mental illness should have to do it alone, and no one should have to be ashamed.”

Atkind urged that Gotblue.org be widely publicized “so that loved ones who are suffering will not have to do it alone. They can get the hope and the help they need to walk through the dark tunnel.”

Rotman opened the news conference by discussing the toll depression takes on 19 million Americans each year.

Citing a new study by the federal government’s Preventive Services Task Force, he noted that depression “can occur to anyone at any age and to people of any race, religion, or ethnic group.”

But, Rotman said, fewer than half the people afflicted ever seek professional help. “The stigma is simply too great,” he explained.

‘Overcome the stigma’

Celina Gray, executive director of NJ Gov. Jon Corzine’s Council on Mental Health Stigma, compared the stigma surrounding mental illness to old taboos concerning cancer. Cancer patients would often die because they were reluctant to share their diagnosis with friends, family, or employers.

“It wasn’t the disease that was fatal, it was the stigma,” she said.

Gray suggested that pediatricians incorporate mental health screening in their regimens for examining children.

“I see mental health stigma as the last frontier in the history of discrimination. It is exciting it be on the front lines of a true revolution in mental health,” she said.

State Senate Majority Leader Richard Codey, the morning’s main speaker, spoke tenderly of the battle his wife, Mary Jo, waged with postpartum depression. After Codey became governor in 2004, Mary Jo Codey shared the story of her lifelong struggle with depression and become an advocate for mental health awareness.

“Today she’s great. She found a doctor who puts together the proper medications for her, and she wakes up every day with a smile,” Codey said. “She will help anybody she can.”

Urging people to overcome the stigma, he said, “If someone in your family is depressed, it’s not embarrassing. It knows no barriers. Whether you’re a governor or part of the governor’s family or living in the projects or a multimillionaire or as poor as can be — it can affect anyone.”

Max Kleinman, executive vice president of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ, told NJ Jewish News he has received calls “from people who are desperate because of the economy.”

Kleinman also noted that after car accidents, suicide is the second leading cause of death among American adolescents, and he has attended funerals of teenage suicides. “That is why this initiative is so important,” he said.

Rotman pledged to move promotion for the Gotblue.org campaign beyond its website to local billboards and pre-show advertising at movie theaters.

“It is not just suicide prevention,” said Rotman in an interview after the meeting. “We want to make sure people get help way before that.”

Marsha Atkind’s former husband, David Atkind, praised the campaign. “This is the best possible way to reach people at the grassroots level, like my son, who suffered from this,” he said. “It is just a terrific effort.”

JFS president Bart Schneiderman said the new campaign “will make huge differences in perception. As presentations and ad campaigns get started, people will be more aware of what is around them. That will make mental illness much easier to talk about.”

Lori Price Abrams, director of the UJC MetroWest Community Relations Committee, said she came to the press conference in support of other local agencies involved in combating mental illness. “This campaign is a tremendous piece of communication education, so we will do what we can to help share the message.”

Gotblue.org also offers a mental health hotline: 1-866-202-HELP.

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