Are You OK? You Are Not Alone Anymore.

As we all address untreated trauma and life expectancy gap across Oklahoma, I wanted to share the attached flyer/poster, “Are you OK? Oklahoma CARES Resource Poster” that has been developed over the past three years by families with lived experience in our Getting Ahead Support Groups and feedback from our Family Support Providers, PRSS, Bridges Communities, and local Systems of Care Coalitions.  All resources on the poster are current and recognized as best practices across the state, including 211, Youth Crisis Mobile Response and National Suicide Prevention hotline. No logos are on the poster because wording was modified by the families.

 To honor the families’ voice and their creation, I wanted to share the most recent version with you. It is a simple but powerful resource for staff and families.

Would you be able to share this "family-friendly version" with your staff and clients?  Our families would like to see community organizations and businesses posting the flyer on the back of bathroom stall doors. Our families discussed that the bathroom is the first place people go when under any duress.  "They need a menu of options to connect to resources before everything falls apart."

One of our community leaders stated that "we must increase a warm hand-off to services during these windows of opportunities to stabilize families. If an individual is in crisis, we can ask for their consent to call for help.  By calling together on speaker phone in a private setting, we can increase the likelihood that the individual will access the services they need for themselves and their family."

There is an English and Spanish version.  If other languages are needed, please let me know and we will work with our community partners to update. Please feel free to forward to friends and family too.

 Let me know what you think and if you have any changes or recommendations. This is an evolving document based on feedback from families and community members.

By working together, we are creating positive rippling effects throughout our community that are amazing.