Hi there, Aggie Families,
For those of you that I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting, I’m Liz Vigil, the Family Outreach Specialist for New Mexico State University; one of the people behind Family Outreach Programs and this portal. I know that my work with families ultimately ends in a space that is to benefit your students, but today I’d like to take a minute to talk to you and about you before anything else.
I've been meaning to write something for our portal since we launched, but as you all know, we’ve been in the midst of a pandemic through most of 2020, and life has come to anything but a halt. It’s transformed, adjusted, we’ve lost out on experiences and opportunities, and been impacted in ways that I’m certain we don’t fully recognize. I hear talk consistently about “when things go back to normal”, but that won’t ever happen. I’m sure of it. There will eventually be a new sense of normalcy, but it will be very different and carry with it the effects of this time period.
We also talk a lot about health and safety, but we sometimes leave out the fact that overall wellness includes mental health as well. During our Family Orientation programs this summer, we urged you to encourage your students to seek support for their Mental Health from Counseling Services on campus, and they definitely need it more than ever. But so do we. Whether you sent your student off for the first time this Fall, or for the 8th time; it’s been an unexpected journey (and not the Tolkien kind with a dragon, we hope!). I’ve been on the other side of your frustrated phone calls, concerned emails, and masked visits to our office. Trust when I tell you that we share your concern for your students, and not only for them, but for you as well.
As you’re supporting your students, your households, your families, your coworkers, and any and everyone else whose support team you are a part of, are you looking for support for yourself as well? Sometimes we forget in our urge to make sure everyone else is doing okay, to check in with ourselves as well. I hope you find spaces in your day to do things that bring you peace, and if not peace, then maybe just space to breathe and collect your thoughts.
Mental health and wellness for our students, and our families, is essential to our goals as Family Outreach Programs. We can easily get tied down by the social stigmas associated with talking about mental health, but especially now more than ever, it is easy to feel alone. We encourage you to seek support in the same way we asked you to encourage your students to. If you’re unsure of where to find your nearest resources, a good place to start is NAMI. We’re all doing our best to navigate all of this together and we all could use extra support to see this through to the next adventure.
Although we can’t see you in person for events this semester, we definitely miss all of your smiling faces. In light of that, we are hopeful that we will eventually reemerge into a space where we take everything we’ve learned about how we’re living now, and create a new way to consistently engage with our families (near and far) and better understand how to support each other. See you soon; stay well, in every space of your life. We're always happy to hear from you.
All best for now,
Liz
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