Stress levels are reaching new heights across rural America….and a handful of agricultural organizations have come together to offer some help.
The Rural Resilience Training Course is a new, free, online course to help farmers and their families recognize and manage stress. It was developed by members of Michigan State University Extension and the University of Illinois Extension.
Farm Credit Council CEO Todd Van Hoose says his company got behind the new online course because they’re seeing farm stress firsthand.
“At Farm Credit, we are out in the countryside talking to farmers and ranchers all the time and we see this stress, and we see this stress rising, not only on farmers themselves, but think about the impact that has on farm families and entire farming communities. We’re hopeful that this online stress training program we’re talking about can help provide some resources to manage that.”
Van Hoose says the online stress-management course fills a need in rural America.
“Rural America has very limited mental health resources. They’re just not available. Through either distance, isolation, lack of health care facilities, there’s a real challenge getting people access to the resources they need and the help they need. In rural America, it seems like there’s a bit of a stigma to talking about mental health challenges, to ask for help when you might need it. One of the benefits we hope is this training program will help overcome that stigma.”
American Farm Bureau is another one of the organizations behind the new online course. President Zippy Duvall says he found out how important it is to talk through stress after his wife, Bonnie, passed away.
“The worst stress I’ve ever been through was going through her sickness last year and I lost her in January. And, after I lost her and watching my children, I knew I had to be the one to get them all through it and I held it all inside. You hold all the stress and all the feelings you have around issues like that, it’s like a bubble blowing up in you and it will burst. One day I let it out, and I was able to talk about my wife, and the more I talked about her the better I felt myself. We have to help ourselves so that we can help others through this time.”
National Farmers Union is also behind the new online training course. Vice President of Advocacy Mike Stranz says rural areas tend to have a shortage of mental health care services.
“There have been studies out there that show 61 percent of designated mental health professional shortage areas were in non-metropolitan areas and rural America. Studies would say that 4,000 to 6,000 mental health professionals would be needed to provide adequate care nationwide. That’s just not going to happen overnight, and hopefully, this training can help provide an important stopgap.”
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