Pell City Council Member Ivi McDaniel continues to be on the forefront of creating Pell City’s mental health task force. The group came together on Aug. 25, for a meeting to form committees that tackle awareness, training and data collection.

McDaniel says she created the task force as a network of people to bring awareness and solutions to the city in regards to mental health.

“We’re bringing help to an area in our community that has been needed. There are a lot of people looking forward to being able to do that,” said McDaniel.

She said she was most excited to see people return to the meeting ready to open up and talk about the mental health issues that St. Clair and Pell City are facing. One of the first goals of the organization is to bring training to people in everyday life, so they know how to help someone who might be struggling with mental health issues.

“There are people in the community who are concerned about the same thing, and we all have this one thing in mind — let’s help our community with mental health,” said McDaniel.

The project was spurred by the creation of Sem;colon, which is another mental health awareness campaign program designed for local teens.

Awareness, resources and training are the three things she’s most interested in, as the task force leaves its infancy. The long-term goal is to put a crisis center in Pell City so that people will have somewhere to go to for help.

The first goal of the task force is to bring awareness and reduce stigma about the conversation of mental health. McDaniel wants people to understand that dealing with mental health issues, especially following COVID, is something that is more common than not.

The second goal is to develop resources, which involves working with community clinic and the hospital to find their resources and create new ones. McDaniel said the mental health system is broken and it’s hard for people to locate help, especially with so few resources.

While she and others work to figure out solutions to improve mental health support in Pell City, McDaniel is asking ‘what can be done in the meantime to boost people’s morale?’

The third goal is training, which includes mental health first aid training. An idea to train the average person how to see the signs of someone struggling with mental health issues.

“If a person is in a crisis, what can we do and how can we help them?” said McDaniel.

Another facet of the program she intends to develop is creating signage to put into the city that will offer resources for someone who might be struggling.

“The whole mental health task force is to bring awareness, and we need to remove the stigma through conversation by saying this is what mental health is. It doesn’t mean you’re crazy or weird,” said McDaniel.

McDaniel said her personal passion for the project is to have people in the community come together to create solutions that will outlast her position on the city council.

“My hope is that our city will get this right, so that other communities will look and say ‘OK, how did you do it?’”