Last year I had the honor of announcing our first-ever Gold Award in the Vision Award Annual Report Competition sponsored by the League of American Communications Professionals (LACP) for our 2010 Hartford Annual Report.

This year, I get to brag again. Our 2011 Hartford Annual Report focused on mental health and older adults won a Silver Award in this year’s Vision Award competition. (As an official Hartford Bean Counter, I do feel obliged to report that our overall score of 97/100 was higher than last year’s 96/100.). Again, we won accolades for our narrative, creativity, and information accessibility, earning perfect marks on all.

Rather than simply bragging, I want to do some thanking. While Frank Doll, Nora OBrien-Suric, Jessie White, and I worked pretty hard on this report, the real, creative heavy lifting fell to Lynne Christensen (writer), Don Battershall (designer/photographer/videographer) and Will Mebane (photographer/videographer).

Lynne, Don, and Will faced a much higher degree of difficulty with this report. We tasked them with covering a very sensitive, highly stigmatized, and all too often misunderstood topic: mental health. They were to step into the lives of older adults who have faced life-threatening struggles with mental illness and translate their experiences into something readers could understand, appreciate, and hopefully learn from.

I asked Lynne, Don, and Will to share what this experience was like and what they, as artists, took away from the process.

Lynne spoke of how intimidating the topic seemed at first:

“Mental health is such a diverse topic that it was difficult for me to imagine how I could do justice to all the issues that relate to older adults with mental health conditions. All the people I interviewed, including Hartford-funded health care professionals and older adults and their caregivers, gave so generously of their time and expertise that it made my job so much easier. Given the stigma that still exists around mental health I was amazed when the people we featured readily opened up and told me their stories.”

Don found taking photographs of older adults to be an art form in and of itself:

“The one thing I’ve learned from photographing older adults for the Hartford Foundation is that in order to take a portrait or photograph an older person in their environment is that you have to really slow down and just listen, let the person talk, let them ask me questions before I can even ask them about taking their picture. That process of emptying my mind and just listening opens up this whole unchartered world; this opening allows me in and with that comes things I never could have foreseen.”

Will enjoyed the opportunity to meet and work with real people whose struggles illuminate the health issues that many older adults face:

“The most rewarding aspect of working on this project is that you get to have access to real people's lives. From a creative standpoint, there is a great deal of preliminary research that can be done, but the challenge is to let the stories emerge from our experiences in the field.

As our country debates and struggles with how to wrestle with the costs and challenges of providing high quality healthcare for all of our citizens, it is reassuring to meet with the leaders who are helping to define and map the way forward.”

We believe that highlighting stories in our annual report is the best way to make these issues meaningful.

Don found one story that spoke to his own personal experience:

“When David talked about living with bipolar I was knocked out at how articulate and forthright he was. He talked about how he coped with it and had ways to keep himself in check and to try and avoid a manic episode. I was literally hearing something for the first time that I wished I would have been able to hear earlier in my life. My father was bipolar and had a very hard time coping with his illness; hearing David talk about it so eloquently touched something deep in me. I found myself wishing that my father would have been able to articulate his understanding about himself and how it would have helped me understand him better and allowed me to be more supportive.

It was an honor to work on this annual report and listen to others talk so openly about mental illness and their experiences. Sharing stories is indeed healing, and listening has its rewards.”

Now, it is your turn to reap the rewards. We believe you will find the stories in our annual report as meaningful and moving as did Lynne, Don, and Will.

Please pass the report along to those you care about.