NAMI Minnesota (National Alliance on Mental Illness) presented Elk River (District 30A) Rep. Nick Zerwas with a Legislator of the Year Award at its annual conference, held in St. Paul on Nov. 2. The award recognizes a legislator who has been an outspoken advocate for children and adults with mental illness and their families.

 “When the Star Tribune published a series on the use of solitary confinement in our prisons in December of 2016, reporting that over 17,500 prisoners had been placed in solitary, a fair number of whom lived with a mental illness, Rep. Zerwas was livid. He didn’t believe it was right for people with a mental illness to be locked alone in a small room for months at a time in conditions that would only make them worse off,” recounted NAMI’s executive director Sue Abderholden.

 “Starting in the 2017 legislative session Rep. Zerwas has been the strongest advocate for legislation to restrict the use of solitary, require basic conditions, monitor people’s mental health, and provide yearly data to the legislature. He authored bills that came close to passing in 2017 and 2018, but this year it finally happened,” she said.

 “This is a monumental change that couldn’t have happened without his leadership and advocacy.  There are other issues that he has worked on that have helped the mental health community, but his work on this issue has been nothing short of amazing.”