Billings and Butte, MT — Billings Clinic/Logan Health hosted “Let’s Talk About It” nights during basketball games at Montana Tech in Butte and Rocky Mountain College in Billings last week in an effort to bring awareness to suicide prevention and to normalize asking for help. In partnership with the Frontier Conference, the unified health system spoke with student athletes about the importance of talking about mental health and handed out resources to attendees and students. Sponsoring these games was the most recent act of outreach for the Let’s Talk About It campaign, an initiative launched in 2023 with the purpose of addressing Montana’s suicide epidemic.
Montana has had one of the highest suicide rates in the United States for the past four decades. With approximately 300 suicides a year and a youth suicide rate more than double the national average, the campaign was introduced as a way to destigmatize mental health. This stigma that surrounds mental health has acted as a barrier, preventing those who suffer from mental illness from asking for help. By talking openly and honestly about mental health, we can make it easier for those who suffer in silence to reach out and receive the help and support they need.
The Let’s Talk About It campaign started in partnership with the Montana High School Association as a way to encourage high school-aged kids to talk about mental health to create a supportive environment for their peers and themselves.
In addition to the games last week at Montana Tech and Rocky Mountain College, Billings Clinic/Logan Health will be hosting a suicide prevention basketball game at Carroll College on February 24. They will also be hosting awareness games at Glacier High School for the Crosstown basketball games on February 1 and at Bigfork High School on February 1 vs. Browning and February 8 vs. Ronan.
For more information about the campaign, visit logan.org/LetsTalk.
Billings Clinic and Logan Health are united as one not-for-profit, Montana-based, independent health care system focused on keeping patients and families close to home and connecting care in communities throughout the region. The unified health system serves an area that includes most of Montana and northern Wyoming. It includes nine hospitals with 1,000 patient beds and more than 20 regional partnerships with critical access hospitals and clinics. Led by a physician CEO, the system is governed by a board of community members and medical professionals. More than 9,000 employees, including 1,200 physicians and advanced practice providers practicing in 80 specialties. Working together, they provide patients and their families with a positive, proactive, patient-centered experience through innovative and effective approaches to high quality, safe health care. The health care system has deep commitments to pediatrics, trauma, mental health, complex care, and health care education. By uniting the two organizations, each of which have served Montana and the surrounding region for more than 100 years, Billings Clinic and Logan Health are better together and better positioned to adapt to the rapidly changing health care environment, with a commitment to sustaining and growing services to meet the needs of Montana and Wyoming families.