Can We Talk: a National Miniseries for Mental Health Awareness Month
Can We Talk is our miniseries for Mental Health Awareness in May. The first season broadcast nationally in May 2019 on 221 stations in 32 states and Washington D.C. In 2020, due to COVID we waited to launch the series until October. Our theme for 2020 and 2021 was “Finding Courage.” NPR stations either broadcast them weekly for a month in October for Mental Illness Awareness Day, or in May of 2021 for Mental Health Awareness Month. Stations also broadcast each special separately, when the topic is especially relevant. Each episode explores a subject that is difficult to talk about through a combination of storytelling and expert guidance, offering listeners practical tools for navigating challenging conversations. Each season of the miniseries includes four hour-long episodes:
2020-1: Finding Courage:
2019: Can we Talk:
The Mental Health Outreach Project
Safe Space Radio offers playlists of podcasts about subjects that are difficult to talk about, and that affect our health. We have one for adults, “Mental Health Can Start Here,” and one for young adults, “Telling My Truth.” The playlists can be accessed instantly on mobile devices via digital QR codes. These playlists are now posted in public libraries in states around the country, and in doctors’s offices, cafe’s and bookstores. so that people can listen while they wait.
The Hearing Aides:
During our series on refugee women in Maine, we learned that many asylum seekers have been sexually assaulted by the military or police in their home country, in an attempt to stop them from the inspiring work they were doing. In addition to suffering this trauma, it is very difficult and painful to talk about the assault with a U.S. immigration official during the application process. As a result, many asylum seekers leave this information out of their application, thus weakening their case. Inspired by the courageous truth-telling of our guests, we issued a call over the radio for volunteer therapists to listen compassionately to survivors and write down their stories for their lawyers. Studies show that the first time you tell the story of a trauma, it helps profoundly if you are believed. Bringing together therapists and former asylum seekers to help women tell their stories, we worked for several years to help women truly live in a Safe Space. This is a story about that work.
Transgender Training for Psychiatrists:
Our 2011 radio series on the experience of being transgender included interviews about the process of coming out and living into ones identity, the challenges of getting medical treatment, coping with stigma and discrimination, life as a trans couple, and supports for transgender teens. During an interview with Alex Roan, the founder of the Maine Transgender Network, he asked me to get the training needed to conduct the psychiatric assessments required of young adults before they initiate medical treatment. In response, Safe Space Radio put together a free training open to all Maine psychiatrists. Professor Frank Brooks from the University of New England, and three trans young adults came to speak to us about the following topics: the mental health consequences of stigma, common misunderstandings, threats of violence and shame, the role of the psychiatrist in assessing someone who is transgender in preparing them for the choice of surgery, the impact of hormone treatment, and some of the expected emotional and psychological sequela of sexual re-assignment surgery. The official learning objectives were:
- Apply the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association’s
Standards of Care with Humanistic and Client Affirming Processes - Identify the Controversies Surrounding the diagnostic categories of Gender
Identity Disorder listed in the DSM-IV TR.
Psychiatrists from around the state attended the training at the University of Southern Maine in the service of greater preparedness and understanding.
Mental Health for Afghan Women Pursuing a College Education:
In January of 2022, I received a call from Kamal Ahmad, the founder of the Asian University for Women in Bangladesh, asking if I could help design a mental health program for 171 newly arrived women who had escaped from Afghanistan. The need was urgent as the counseling staff had left during the pandemic and the Afghan evacuees had suffered trauma, cultural disruption and loss. Over the next year we designed and offered two series of mental health workshops, many of which featured former guests from Safe Space Radio, talking about trauma, sleep, coping with anxiety, finding courage, overcoming stigma and more. The University offered weekly podcasts of our shows as resources for the students. In addition, a team of clinicians created a series of “Writing for Friendship” groups for students, led by volunteer therapists to help foster supportive communities within the University. These writing groups were inspired by Kerry Malawista’s The Things They Carry project where volunteer therapists led writing groups for front-line healthcare workers during covid-19. These programs have now expanded to include students from all 19 countries represented at the Asian University for Women. Our planning committee includes Elissa Ely MD, Layne Gregory MSW, Janna Malamud Smith MSW, Kerry Malawista Ph.D and Usha Tummala-Narra Ph.D.
Here is the story from Harvard Magazine.
Healthcare Education
Safe Space Radio offers eleven free online educational webinars for students in medicine, nursing, social work, and psychology. We are dedicated to supporting the next generation of mental health clinicians in fostering courage and empathy, facilitating positive provider-patient relationships, and working for positive change in the treatment of mental illness. Each webinar addresses a subject that is hard to talk about that affects the health of our patients. They each include learning objectives, discussion questions, a quiz for knowledge retention, and a printable certificate of completion. We recently published an article in Academic Psychiatry about our research into the impact of listening to these podcasts has on fostering empathy and reducing stigma among third year medical students. You can read that article here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10014135/
Community Listening & Conversation
In partnership with community organizations, schools, and libraries, Safe Space Radio hosts public listening and discussion events featuring issues, stories, and guests from Can We Talk. Public events afford listeners the opportunity to practice talking about difficult subjects in real time, and to engage with issues raised in the series such as restorative justice, access to healthcare, the opioid epidemic, homelessness, or racial justice—many of which affect the daily lives of Mainers. Current partners include Maine Initiatives, Maine Inside Out, Maine Wabanaki REACH, Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Alliance (GLSEN), Maine Medical Center, Waynflete School, and others. We also offer listening and training events for organizational leadership, such as staff, board members, and constituents of community-based nonprofits who work in each content area. This project is made possible with support from the Sam L. Cohen Foundation.
Discussion Prompts
Safe Space Radio offers two series of brief story prompts for groups to use in discussion and education: for family caregivers for those with dementia, and for LGBTQ teens and their allies. These prompts were designed to invite conversation and open sharing about difficult experiences.
Continuing Education Clinician License Renewal
Safe Space Radio now offers continuing education credits for license renewal for physicians, nurses, psychologists, and social workers. Maine Medical Center has designated each podcast for a maximum of 1 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™, and the NASW-Maine has approved them for CE credits for social workers. The fee of $10 will be used to create new programming that fosters empathy, reduces stigma, and inspires the difficult conversations that improve our health. These programs expire on June 30, 2023.
After-School Radio & Social Change Internship
In partnership with two organizations in the Bronx, DreamYard, an arts and social justice organization, and HERE to HERE, an equity and career pathways program, we work with a team of high school students who train as production advisors to assist in the creation of our radio mini-series, Can We Talk. Students participate in all phases of content and idea development, interviewing, writing, and editing, to learn about the relationship between narrative and social change and develop skills for future work in media, advocacy, or the nonprofit sector. This program is made possible by the generosity of the Pinkerton Foundation.
Clinical Conferences
Safe Space Radio co-hosts a conference on mental health topics in partnership with the Maine Association of Psychiatric Physicians. The conference takes place in Portland, Maine, and features experts, speakers, and storytellers from around the country.
- 2018: Meeting the Mental and Physical Health Needs of Immigrants, Refugees, & Asylum Seekers
- 2020: Sexual Health Issues in Psychiatric and Medical Practice
Speaking Engagements
Dr. Anne Hallward speaks internationally on emotional courage, stigma and shame, traumatic silence, and voluntary vulnerability as a form of leadership. Please direct engagement inquiries to info@safespacearadio.com. Thank you for your interest!
