Sonja Mertz, community educator, periodically reports on MNAPG outreach efforts. Here’s her latest account.
Sonja Mertz, Community Educator
Part of my role as community educator includes providing presentations at professional conferences. Audiences at these events include mental health and substance use professionals, educators, administrators and other people who are familiar with, or who have heard of, problem gambling and gambling addiction. At the end of each presentation, I offer time for comments or questions. It’s common for this request to be met with blank stares. Occasionally, someone will ask a question or provide a comment about the gambling behavior they have seen in their line of work.
This past year, my audiences have expanded to include middle school students, gaming industry staff, recovery center staff, people in the military and clients in outpatient addiction recovery. This increased diversity of the folks listening to my presentations has increased audience participation.
With middle school students, the feedback lands in completely opposite directions. They either stare blankly at me and go completely quiet when I ask if they have any questions or they are fully engaged and gladly offer questions or comments. It was during a presentation in Babbit that an eighth grader informed me that an image that I had been using to talk about loot boxes in video games was incorrect. I made sure to change it as soon as possible!
During my presentation at the Military Mental Health Conference at Camp Ripley, a casino employee challenged my suggestion of using cash as a way to reduce the harm of gambling. She talked about how some of her customers bring in stacks of cash and stay until the stack is wiped out. She also expressed her concern about customers who she knows are spending all of their paychecks at the casino and wanted to know what she, as a casino employee, could do.
It was during my most recent presentation to clients of an outpatient treatment group that I was able to witness the direct impact of the information that I push out to those who will listen. These are people who are living with addictions and are going through the recovery process. They have experienced the trauma, mental health issues and co-occurring disorders that I have so diligently researched. Their stories about when their addictions started, their experience with gambling and their sincere concerns about friends and family who were dealing with gambling addiction have really impacted me.
As sports betting and gambling continue to become normalized and Minnesotans recognize how gambling behavior impacts their communities, the need for reliable information increases. The MNAPG staff is seeing a sharp increase in requests for presentations. I am already scheduled in the next few months to present to older adults at senior centers and social services staff at their annual training. I look forward to receiving more feedback from people in the real world – those who are directly impacted by gambling.