Zak Williams and Miller Dwan Foundation Team Up to Help Mental Health Crisis

DULUTH, MINN — The Miller Dwan Foundation introduced a new program known as Hope X or Hope Multiplied.
The foundation reached out to the son of Robin Williams, Zak Williams.
Zak is a mental health advocate who will work to increase awareness of the innovative program – Hope X.

Miller Dwan says the need for mental health care is greater than ever, and it got much worse with the pandemic.
With greater needs, there are simply not enough people to help those in need.
The wait for an appointment with a therapist can be three to four weeks or longer.

The Hope X program is designed to get people the help they need long before they are in a crisis.
To create a peer person, someone a person can talk with in order to keep the mental health issue from becoming a crisis.

Zak Williams said, “There’s an innovative care model specifically focusing on an evidence-based approach to establishing basically
a professional peer designation that enables communities to have essentially trained leaders within their peer set
to support them around mental health considerations and have training around specific navigation and can ideally engage people prior to a crisis.”

The Miller Dwan Foundation has been working on this new program for more than a year.  The part of Hope X introduced Thursday  is the first of three steps
the foundation will unveil over the next few months.