Inspired, Enlightened... Motivated.

The 2023 Mental Health America Conference is a wrap! Beginning on June 6th we held a timely Policy Institute focused on Teens, Tweens and Technology and concluded on June 10th after three days of outstanding presentations and awards.

?Our theme - Next Gen Prevention - is also the title of our strategic plan and signals our intent to be focused on the future and accountable to the well-being of the next generation.?

As we leave this year’s conference, here's a sampling from our enlightening and energizing conversations:

Vital Conditions, Safe Spaces, and Youth Development

All people require the vital conditions for health, mental health and overall well-being? These include safety, housing stability, food security, and access to affordable care, and they are essential to our mental health and overall well-being. They are especially critical for positive social, emotional, and physical development in children and youth.

As we were reminded by Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, we need to ensure mentally healthy spaces for children to grow, learn, play and develop - and we must start with those people and communities at greatest risk.

We must understand the primary role of schools:

• schools are the most effective vector for recommended screening and critical early intervention;
• schools are often the primary environment influencing our childrens' day to day growth as they explore new knowledge about the world, and others, and relationships, and their own developing sense of identity; and
• schools are and where most students receive mental health support when they do.

And we must understand the primary challenges for schools at present:?

• schools have been the scene of our most heartbreaking mass shootings and active shooter drills raise anxiety and fear for many;
• schools are experiencing a drought of resources to meet the demand for mental health support and are hard hit by the workforce shortage;
• schools have become a primary ground for debate and division over rights, participation, and curricular inclusion based on identity;
• school cultures must now also navigate the digital environments where can both learn and receive care, but where they are also exposed to a range of potential dangers;
• for some students schools can be a daily environment of trauma, fear, exclusion, or bullying.

Schools must be psychologically safe and supportive places for the development of our children. And our children deserve even more than that: they deserve places of acceptance, compassion, and belonging.

Generational Trauma and Healing?

Our Diné partners from Tsehootsooi Medical Center came to share with us their traditional healing practices and to offer ceremonial blessings at the opening and closing of our proceedings.

During our time with them, they shared their cultural experiences of trauma and renewal. They spoke of nourishing our human need for connection: connection to self, to culture and identity, to community and family, and to land and Spirit.?

Their presence and generosity deepened our experience and reminded us of our call to mend the social fabric of our nation – to acknowledge and address generational trauma and to nurture our communal bonds as we combat an epidemic of loneliness and despair.?

Moving remarks and poetry by Autumn Rose Miskweminanocsqua (Raspberry Star Woman) Williams, former Miss Native American USA, and Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland also reminded us of our commitment to uplifting the history and strength of all people.

We leave Conference ‘23 mindful of the toll that injustice and inequity exact, and mindful of our role in eliminating disparities as we promote mental health and well-being for all in the next generation.?

And we leave Conference '23 recommitted to the radical notions of our founder:?

• that those with lived experience know best what helps, what harms, and what heals;?
• that preventing harm is possible and preferable;
• that the extension of humane care and human dignity for all those is need is our moral obligation;
• and that systemic reform on behalf of the mental well-being of future generations is necessary and achievable.???

There is much more to say about what we learned together, so I encourage you to check out the recaps of Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Affiliate Day, and the Policy Institute.

Mental Health America Dr. David Johns @Ms_AutumnRose Jennifer Bright Stuart Allen, PMP

#mentalhealth #nextgenprevention #schoolmentalhealth #socialdeterminantsofhealth #mentalhealthamerica #generationaltrauma