Editor’s Note: Today’s post is by Randy Townsend. Randy is irector of Engagement at Origin Editorial and Associate Professor at George Washington University.

In my final speech as the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) President, I asked the audience to pretend that I didn’t mention making origami cranes with colleagues to honor their classmates who were killed in the Virginia Tech massacre or that many of them had traveled to Boston from states where it’s illegal to have programs dedicated to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. I asked them to pretend that members of our teams are not feeling burned out or overwhelmed or that the rising cost of living and discrimination, anxiety, or depression don’t impact the ways in which we show up for work. I asked them to pretend that we don’t have to worry about predatory publishing or paper mills or peer review rings. I used that speech as a reminder that we do not live in the luxury of make-believe and that the potential of the next moment is always realized through purpose, intent, and action.

The SSP Mental Health Task Force, convened within just a few short weeks into my term, watered seeds of discussion that were planted by the caring hands of community members before my term began, with posts in The Scholarly Kitchen like On Being Accepted: The Views of Four People with Disabilities Working in Scholarly Communications (2019), Responsible Reporting of Suicide During COVID-19: The Role of Academic Publishing (2021), Job Hunting with an “Invisible” Disability: A Conversation (2021), The Data Hazards of Mental Health Prediction (2023), and many other uncomfortable conversation starters. As those seeds took root, the Task Force invested their time in cultivating a sustainable plan to support members of our community for seasons to come.

As part of this plan, I’m proud to announce that the Society for Scholarly Publishing is launching the Mental Health Awareness and Action Community of Interest (CoIN) Group. This new CoIN is one of two derivative groups born from the SSP Mental Health Task Force, which will formally sunset with the conclusion of 2024. The other derivative group is an SSP Past Presidents CoIN, which will allow a space for these leaders to continue providing organizational guidance and support to the current President and Board, as needed, in a manner that has proven successful throughout the past year. The Mental Health Awareness and Action CoIN, which will host a soft launch on November 22 at 11 AM Eastern, will be co-led by myself and Jennifer Regala. Jennifer is Associate Director of Publishing at Wolters Kluwer Health. She is the Co-Chair of the SSP-DC Regional Subcommittee, a member of the Annual Meeting Program Committee, and a proud mentor in the SSP Fellowship program. I asked Jennifer to join me in starting this CoIN because of her sincere devotion to connect with individuals, attract people from all directions, and inspire heartwarming relationships. She can talk shop at any level, or strike up a conversation about lifestyle and fashion trends, pop culture, family, or food — whatever the moment needs. This CoIN will benefit from leadership that can welcome every interested professional and navigate the uncomfortable conversations with respect, compassion and professionalism.

Since declaring mental health awareness as an SSP priority in 2023, the Mental Health Task Force has delivered three webinars (Nurturing Minds: Fostering Mental Health Awareness and Organizational Support,Leading with Heart: The Transformative Power of Empathetic Leadership, and Fostering Psychological Safety in the Workplace: An Intro for Scholarly Publishers) and, as part of the growing Mental Health Awareness Mondays catalog, 25 Scholarly Kitchen posts. These initiatives have elevated the voices of compassionate leaders, dedicated members, expert collaborators, and data scientists from across our community. A number of podcasts, including the SSP Early Career Development Podcast, and those from member organizations like the Copyright Clearance Center (Velocity of Content Podcast) and Cactus Global (Insights Xchange), have also advanced the discussions of mental health awareness within our community. These freely available resources have laid a foundation that we can refer to for guidance, understanding, growth, and inspiration.

The launch of the Mental Health Awareness and Action CoIN comes at a time when we can begin analyzing feedback from our recent SSP member survey and establish baseline data. Based on the 225 responses we received, we produced a snapshot of three specific areas that impact mental health in our professional lives: work-life balance, access to resources, and organizational culture.

These responses present important conversation topics for the Mental Health Awareness and Action CoIN to consider. There is much we can learn from one another and many among us who can benefit from this group.

As Jennifer and I have been working together to plan for this important next step for our journey, she reminded me, as she does almost every time we talk, that I once told her it’s important to remember that everyone is welcome at our scholarly publishing table, but we must look far beyond our existing community to include all who want to be a part of SSP. This CoIN is a spot where one and all are welcomed and included. Our meetings will be confidential and supportive in nature and will offer tangible resources and potential solutions to alleviate the burdens we face today.

Jennifer wrote a post in The Scholarly Kitchen a few years ago, Paying It Forward: A Call to Action, to encourage others to become involved with SSP. She also reflected on the support and encouragement she’s received during her own relatively short tenure as an SSP member and outlined ways that she herself would look to give back to others who seek that same camaraderie. This CoIN is a chance for all of us to embrace SSP’s core values of community, adaptability, inclusivity, and integrity and to have some challenging yet meaningful conversations about mental health awareness in our profession. We all want to belong, and as Jennifer reminds us in this post, “It’s free to be nice and to comb your hair.”

Jennifer sent me this photo of an improbable yet ideally placed heart-shaped leaf she spotted on a recent mental health walk to remind me that we are heading on the right path. Prioritizing mental health in the workplace will not always be easy, but it is essential work. We are both committed to accelerating discourse and acceptance around the importance of this topic.

Jennifer and I invite the entire SSP membership committed to mental wellbeing to join us in this journey. For more information, please see the full CoIN description here and register today. The first meeting of the group will be on November 22 at 11 am Eastern. We will then meet monthly beginning in January 2025.