Minnesota Thrives
Building Connections for Mental Well-Being and Resilience
On this Page
- An Invitation
- Overview
- Values
- Ways to Join the Conversation
- How to Submit
- Acknowledging the Impact of the Pandemic
- How to Navigate Current Content
- FAQ
- Help Spread the Word
An Invitation
What is currently happening in your community to promote mental well-being and resilience?
- Do you wonder what activities and strategies other communities are using successfully?
- How could your community expand its scope to better promote mental well-being for everyone?
- How can we engage people and organizations from different sectors to have greater impact?
- How are individuals and families contributing to well-being in a new way?
- Are you looking for strategies to support specific populations?
With your help, MN Thrives can help answer these questions.
Every community planning process starts with an assessment. Despite our connected world, silos and information gaps remain. Creating thriving communities will take everyone. MN Thrives is a central place to gather and share information about mental well-being and resilience strategies.
If your objective is to create a thriving community or to promote mental well-being and resilience, MN Thrives can be a valuable resource. If you are doing work that promotes well-being in your community, your contribution will add important knowledge to this social challenge.
Share your knowledge to help create a thriving Minnesota!
Overview
MN Thrives is a collectively sourced and interactive database of current Minnesota based efforts that promote mental well-being and inclusive, thriving communities. MN Thrives is intended to help Minnesota communities:
- Create a comprehensive picture of current mental well-being strategies, locally and statewide, to inform and guide planning efforts.
- Actively connect and learn from each other.
- Grow and spread mental well-being strategies across communities and sectors.
Values
- Public health approach to mental health: The emphasis of this database is on upstream promotion and prevention strategies for mental well-being and resilience, rather than direct clinical services.
- Broad set of strategies: Creating mental well-being and thriving communities is complex, involving many factors. Many key activity categories are broadly outlined in this Framework for Mental Health Promotion (PDF).
- Innovative to evidence-based: MN Thrives is intended for all types of activities, including innovative, evidence-based practices, research-informed, culturally informed, and strategies based on community wisdom and those with key lived experiences. Innovative and community-informed practices build community capacity, are often essential to help make other programming possible, and may provide opportunities to build evidence in a real-world setting.
- Collaborative learning: Shared learning across communities as we all address mental well-being and resilience is critical. This includes learning about the incremental steps to promote mental well-being and about what did not work. It is intended to capture projects and initiatives at different phases to deepen our learning.
- Equity and inclusion: Community mental well-being requires devoted attention to equity and inclusion. MN Thrives intends to elevate analysis of and investment in strategies based on equity and inclusion.
Ways to Join the Conversation
Reasons to SUBMIT information to MN Thrives
- Promote your work in your community and across Minnesota.
- Find new partners and funders.
- Become part of a network that shares updates and progress.
- Reduce silos and gaps in knowledge about existing efforts.
- Contribute to a comprehensive approach to mental well-being.
- Share with partners or funders that you are listed in MN Thrives.
- Improve your well-being because you know you contributed to growing knowledge about well-being strategies in Minnesota.
- Help create a dynamic learning space.
- Shine a light on your community for the work it is doing to support mental well-being.
Ways to EXPLORE MN Thrives database content
- Use the tool to inform a needs assessment, to identify potential gaps in your community by the type of strategy, the population, the sector, or the outcome measures.
- Get ideas and insights about strategies to address mental well-being, resilience and thriving communities.
- Search for strategies based on specific aspect of well-being (e.g., social connectedness), or a specific population (e.g., LGBTQ).
- Identify potential partners or organizations to consult.
- See how people are talking about and utilizing evidence.
- Identify what outcome measures and funding ideas others are using.
- Identify for funders how unique or common your strategy is statewide.
How to Submit
- Download the MN Thrive Survey Form (PDF) for review if needed. This is a worksheet that includes all of the questions found in the online survey.
- Go to Submit an Entry.
- Take 30 minutes to complete the questions.
- Contact MDH if you have any questions.
Submission Details
- Only include Minnesota initiatives.
- Include initiatives and locations that are in progress or have been implemented. For example, if you have the potential to support at any location but are currently operating in one county- please identify only that county. You can indicate in the summary the potential to work in other locations.
- Updates will be made quarterly.
- Content shared online does not imply MDH endorsement.
- MDH maintains the right to withhold content that is not suitable for these purposes. MDH will reach out to respondents to discuss if this occurs.
- Information will not be altered; content will be shared as provided.
Acknowledging the Impact of the Pandemic
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we all experienced the need for well-being, and many found ways to support their families, organizations, and communities in unique ways. Those strategies may be valuable to share in this format. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we all experienced the impact of social isolation on our mental well-being. People found unique ways of reaching out to neighbors and supporting families, organizations, and communities. We don’t want to lose the practices of kindness created during the pandemic. These valuable strategies can be captured and shared on this format.
How to Navigate Current Content
- Go to the Minnesota Thrives Database
- Print the list or navigate online
- Use the “sort” function for each column; click on the down arrow on the first row of each column that you want to sort by, and select the items you want to see. Only rows with these fields will be visible. To unselect the sort function, click on the down arrow of the column and click on “select all”.
FAQ
What do we mean by mental health and well-being?
MN Thrives aligns with the World Health Organization which defines mental health as A state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community." This definition is broad and inclusive of the many contributing strategies to promote mental health and well-being in a community.
For more information about mental health definitions and measurement, go to: Mental Health Promotion (state.mn.us)
Who is this tool for?
This tool is for anyone who is actively invested in the health and well-being of the community and its members, including professionals, leaders, individuals, and families. It is especially valuable for those involved in a community group that is working to create mental well-being, resilience and thriving communities.
How can I use this information?
We hope that you will use this information to inform and guide organization and community planning efforts. Identify potential gaps in supports to inform your planning or grant writing. You can search the database by county, strategy type, population, and more. Find what outcome measures other communities are using to track efforts. Find initiatives that you want to explore in your community and reach out to the contact person. Use the content to inform other groups you support; bring this information to networking meetings or invite speakers from these initiatives to your group meeting.
What is an initiative? What should I include?
An initiative is any project, program, practice, policy effort, training series, communications campaign, community coalition, community process or other activity that contributes to mental well-being and thriving communities in Minnesota.
Number of Entries: You can decide the number of entries to capture your work. If there are a set of activities that fall under one umbrella, you may choose to include them all in one entry. If there is, among them, an initiative that stands out and would build more awareness if described in a separate entry, please add more than one entry. For example, you may have a community coalition that builds community capacity through planning, community conversations, and fundraising. The coalition may have launched a community-wide campaign about promoting access to nature, which could warrant a separate entry.
Current or Previous Efforts Only: Please only include initiatives and locations that are in progress or have been implemented. This database is intended to capture current or recent work, it is not intended as a tool to market services that are available anywhere in the state. Resources that have been implemented in one or more communities can be shared; if this resource is available in other communities, that can be noted in the description but not in the list of locations.
Examples of “Initiatives”
- New coalition to address social connectedness in County XYZ, MN. The first activity is to host community conversations about social isolation and connectedness.
- Implementing Restorative Justice program and practices in all schools in the district.
- Developing new policies around healthy relationships with technology in local high schools.
- Community Conversations Series - hosting community conversations about mental well-being and belonging.
- Trauma-informed care practices - organization began with a trauma-informed care assessment and has been implementing steps to improve approach to trauma with clients and community. Started with employee gratitude practices to build a culture of support.
- Youth clubs for children of incarcerated parents to share experiences and create expressions.
Help Spread the Word
Invite others to submit an entry so that we can build a robust inventory of activities.
- Share this MN Thrives postcard (PDF) at community events or meetings.
- Use this MN Thrives Overview (PDF) to explain the tool and how it can be used.
- Use this MN Thrives Social Media Toolkit (PDF) on your social media platforms.
This is a project of the Mental Well-Being and Resilience Learning Community.
Questions
Email health.mch@state.mn.us or call 651-201-3650.