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Mental Health Empowerment Day is a day not to be missed!
You may be a teacher and one of your students has not been in school for weeks. Perhaps you are a parent and your daughter can’t get out of bed. Perhaps you are 16 years old. Every time you walk into school, it’s not a good scene. your stomach turns upside down and your body is drenched in sweat.
These are typical scenarios of those who are going through some degree of mental illness and as always, there are four words that come to everyone’s minds.
With information overload from every social media platform, combined with the most ignorant phrase of “Just snap out of it” can make anyone scream. And cry. And feel incredibly frustrated and lost.
Today’s iGen (those born from 1995-2012) are under an increased rate of mental health challenges which in turn leads to the urgency of mental health education.
That question is still standing like the elephant in the room.
Enter Leanne Matlow @LeanneMatlow who is a Special Education Resource teacher and CBT Counsellor. Leanne is a Professional Colleague of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy. She is the author of two books: Thinking About Thoughts and TELL ME! She is a woman with a mission. To educate all about mental health. What are the symptoms? Who can you talk to? What can you do? What do you do?
Leanne is also an advisory board member of Brave The Waves – A Program for Building Resiliency. How lucky are we?
For the past two years in the fall, Matlow has organized a Mental Health Empowerment Day @mentalhealthempowermentday (MHED) in Toronto, Ontario. The best part? Everyone leaves feeling a little calmer, educated, and has been enlightened to “Stop the Stigma” regarding mental health.
On MHED, you get to hear from Clinical Psychologists, specializing in Cognitive Behaviour. You also get a chance to witness real-life stories from those who are challenged with mental health.
Caversham booksellers @cavershambooks are also on-site. They are selling the latest literature on mental health as are other organizations promoting emotional and physical well-being.
Who should attend this one of a kind and very much needed and incredible day? Parents, teachers, principals, and social workers. Anyone who deals with youth on a daily basis, really. After the lectures, participants are able to converse with specialists. They may not receive a full counseling session, but some direction can lead to some light in a very dark tunnel.
This year, MHED @mentalhealthempowermentday will take place on Sunday, October 27th at Beth Tzedic Congregation from 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM. The theme this year is “What I wish you knew.” I hope it runs every year until we all feel like we can talk about mental illness the same way we talk about breaking a bone in our body. We need to get professional help to heal.
I’m so grateful to be able to have the opportunity to write what I’m passionate about and what I think will serve others. If you would like me to write about you and your passions for the Braves The Waves Journal, or for your own company, please be in touch.