Good evening. I am State Representative Luke Frederick and I’m here tonight to present the Center for Rural Behavioral Health Advocate of the Year award to the Mankato Free Press.
Since the inception of the Center for Rural Behavioral Health in January of 2022, the Mankato Free Press has been a partner in informing the public about the Center’s mission of providing access to mental health care for thousands of South-Central Minnesotans.
In my career in mental health services at the Saint Peter Regional Treatment Center, I saw every day how the people there were failed by our mental health systems and ended up incarcerated. But I have also witnessed successes and how timely and adequate mental health care can change a life.
In my role at the Capitol, we have heard many times how the work of the Center has reached into our communities, but the work doesn’t make the impact it could unless residents learn how to access their services. The Mankato Free Press has been instrumental in covering the mission of the Center since the beginning. When announcing this year’s Advocate of the Year recipient, the Center highlighted a series in the Mankato Free Press examining behavioral health issues in the region and praised the publication for connecting community members to public events focusing on mental health.
An editorial in the Free Press highlighted the Center’s work to address the mental health worker shortage and examined the role the center plays in recruiting and training for these important roles. More residents than ever can get the mental health care they need because of the information published in the Free Press. No doubt, the partnership between the two has saved lives.
For nearly 150 years, the Mankato Free Press has been informing its readers. The importance of a local, thriving newspaper cannot be overstated - and the Mankato Free Press is among the best in Minnesota. Judged by their peers, in January, the Mankato Free Press was presented with 18 journalism awards from the Minnesota Newspaper Association for editorial and advertising excellence, including a first-place award for the publication’s series on mental health.
Newspapers are a lifeline. They are a sentinel. They expose wrongdoing. They highlight the good. They inspire us, get us fired up, help us understand, but most of all they link us to our communities through information. The Mankato Free Press dug into the need for mental health services in our region and for their excellent work, the Center for Rural Behavioral Health presents them with the Advocate of the Year Award.
Congratulations.