Mental Health Awareness Is An SSP Priority

At SSP, Randy Townsend has led efforts to prioritize mental health awareness and support within the scholarly communications ecosystem.

Are you eating or sleeping too much or too little? Are feeling helpless or hopeless? Do you find yourself unusually confused or forgetful or scared? Those feelings may be signs that you may be living with a mental health condition.

According to the US National Institute of Mental Health, nearly one-in-five adults live with a mental illness. Clearly, anyone with mental health concerns is not alone. If you see yourself in a list of signs and symptoms, then the next step is to reach out for help.

As President of the Society for Scholarly Publishing, Randy Townsend has led efforts to prioritize mental health awareness and support within the scholarly communications ecosystem. In February, for example, SSP organized a webinar, “Nurturing Minds,” that considered the nature of mental health challenges and its impact on well-being and the workplace.

In addition to his SSP role, Townsend is an associate professor at George Washington University in the College of Professional Studies publishing program. In January, GWU graduate student Maribel Gomez contributed a guest column to the SSP Scholarly Kitchen blog that described describes the impact that racism has on mental health.

“I am so very proud of Maribel. She was an incredible student of mine, and I’m really happy to see the work that she’s been doing with SSP. She contributed her post not because I directly asked her. She contributed because she felt inspired and motivated to do it. Her post has received more than 4,500 views, so her message is clearly resonating,” Townsend tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally.

“Despite the grounds that we’re making on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility – all in trying to make work a safe space for everybody, there are still aggressions – microaggressions and other kinds of aggressions – that people of color have to work through. Unfortunately, this exacerbates the pressures of mental health because you don’t know that you belong. You don’t know that you feel welcome.”