Hope and help are real, even for people struggling with mental health.
Advocate, educator, and 1996 Å·ÃÀÊÓƵ graduate Sarah Dixon-Hackey, one of only 30 recipients of a , plans to use the prestigious leadership program in her ongoing effort to get that message out to everyone.
A sales and marketing instructor at Minnesota State Community and Technical College, Dixon-Hackey also serves as community engagement liaison with . There, she facilitates public health outreach to underserved populations and oversees community digital storytelling as a platform for connection and change.
She’s also vice president of the Board of Directors of the of the , with a long track record of advocacy for underrepresented people, including people of color, refugees, and immigrant communities.
Her previous work includes co-authoring a grant guiding 35 college students through a digital storytelling project, launching a podcast featuring resettlement stories, and facilitating mental health training in five refugee communities.
The is an unusual one, with a strong focus on cultivating leaders and leadership in individuals rather than projects or plans. Being selected will help Dixon-Hackey bring her vision of empowering North Dakotans to better understand mental health care to life.
For her, that means simultaneously pursuing two different tracks: first, continuing formal education in journalism from a prominent research university like Harvard or New York University, with a specific focus on digital media and podcasting.
“I want to really do something that has some teeth to it,” she said.
The other track will focus on professional development and training in suicide prevention and mental health, including formal certification and deeper research into cultural disparities in care.
“Her work is expected to create a ripple effect, inspiring collective energy and advancing critical conversations and solutions,” the Bush Foundation states on .
Dixon-Hackey has already begun a project uniting the two elements of her fellowship — a new podcast, “: Searching for Mental Health Help & Hope in Rural America.”
“The title is a little bit heavy and intense, but I meant it to be hopeful,” she said, explaining the title’s origin: During the COVID-19 pandemic, a colleague likened their work to building a plane while flying it. “That is such a great parallel to how a lot of us feel in life and in this journey.”
Fittingly, the podcast is itself a work in progress and a kind of test run for the kind of work Dixon-Hackey hopes to produce. She has released four of the dozen episodes she has banked to gauge interest and find out what the best framework might be for the material.
“The initial episodes that I started with were very informational. I wanted to give people the resources,” she said, particularly the information that sometimes gets lost in transit between professionals working in mental health and legislators or the general public. “We all need to hear from each other, and there are a lot of layers to that… I’m going to start blending in more of the personal stories.”
Dixon-Hackey chose as a medium because they provide creators with significant storytelling freedom, allowing for engaging, personal, and informational material to be shared. In addition, many new Americans come from cultures that rely heavily on oral history and story sharing and, as such, some aren’t literate even in their own languages.
“And I thought: I don't want to keep anybody out. I want everybody to have access to this information, and I want it to be accessible in a way that is comfortable for people,” she said.
Prior to earning a Master of Business Administration degree from North Dakota State University in 2009, Dixon-Hackey graduated from Concordia with a bachelor’s degree in business with a concentration in healthcare administration. She studied with Dr. Ted Heimarck, the founder of the program whose name the Heimarck Center bears.
“I have wonderful memories of that period,” she recalled. “Healthcare and the capacity for change have always been in my brain — for business and especially marketing. I see marketing as nothing more than communication education.”
“: Searching for Mental Health Help & Hope in Rural America” is available on , , and other places where podcasts can be found.
The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is for individuals in crisis and those who want to help someone else. To speak with a trained listener, call 988. Visit for crisis chat services or for more information.