September is Hispanic Heritage Month and therefore a perfect time to announce that Change to Chill is now available in Spanish. Thanks to a hardworking team of Spanish-speaking staff at Allina Health, website users can now view and interact with all website content and resources in Spanish. Allina Health’s Susan Nygaard, Manager of Community Health Improvement,  talked with KARE 11 News about the Spanish version of the site.

Esmerelda Garcia, a graduate of and now Promise Fellow with El Colegio High School in South Minneapolis, was also featured in the interview. Esmerelda talked about the importance of providing mental health resources in Spanish, mental health stigma in the Latinx community, and shared some of her own mental health journey. Watch the full interview here.

To view the website in Spanish, click the “Espanol (Spanish)” button in the blue banner at the top of each Change to Chill webpage. Stay tuned for more content highlighting the experiences of Latinx teens coming to the website soon.

Navigating Social Interactions…

Relationships have changed in ways we could not have predicted. Many of us are finding that friends have changed, groups have changed, and people no longer share common interests. Read more ›

The start of school is just around the corner and that means all that stress for students getting back to the classroom , or perhaps their computers at home. Allina Health’s Manager of Community Health Improvement, Susan Nygaard, talked with KSTP TV News about back to school issues and how Allina’s Change to Chill programs can help kids manage those challenges. One of Change to Chill’s summer interns, Amara Thompson from Columbia Heights School, was also featured.

You can watch the story online here and learn more about the Change to Chill School Partnership here.

Allina Health was featured in the most recent edition of the Minnesota Hospital Association’s (MHA) newsletter, Newsline, as a leader in community benefit. The spotlight focused on Change to Chill in particular, emphasizing the need to address teen mental health in the wake of COVID-19.

As Penny Wheeler, president and CEO of Allina Health, stated, “At a time when mental well-being has been strained more than ever and is layered upon an existing mental health crisis, Change to Chill offers needed support.”

Read the full spotlight here and visit the MHA website to learn more and read MHA’s full community benefit report.

Getty/The Washington Post/Nick Otto

Allina Health was recently featured in a report from the Center for American Progress entitled How Nonprofit Hospitals Can Support Communities and Advance Public Health. The authors point to Change to Chill, along with sister programs Health Powered Kids and Hello4Health, as shining examples of how Allina Health uses its resources and capacity to address community identified needs. Read the full article and see the accompanying fact sheet for more information.

It’s important to take time and step back from your day by participating in an activity that allows you to relax.

What you find relaxing may vary depending on the season or even the day, but take the time for you! Read more ›

Emotions run fast. It takes just 100 milliseconds for our brains to react to something emotionally. However, it takes about 600 milliseconds for our thinking brain (frontal cortex) to actually register that emotion. So, even if we decide that we do not want to react with anger/fear/laughter/disappointment, by the time we make that decision, our body language has already started to show that reaction.

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Asking for help or support can be difficult no matter the situation, but it can be especially hard when it comes to talking about mental health. Due to common misconceptions surrounding mental illness and addiction, many people find it uncomfortable to openly talk about mental health, creating a harmful stigma. Read more ›

Change to Chill’s Susan Nygaard was featured on WCCO radio interview with host Sheletta Brundidge about our work on integrating LGBTQIA+ content on the Change to Chill website. They discuss the need for resources and support tailored to the unique experiences of LGBTQIA+ teens. This is especially important in light of social isolation brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

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You may be aware that mindfulness is focusing on the present moment. But, did you know that coloring is considered mindfulness? What a fun way to practice! Read more ›