Educating Adults to Lead the Conversation

Format

One of Minding Your Mind’s most popular and flexible programs, Just Talk About It is foundational mental health education for adult audiences. Facilitated by a mental health professional and featuring a young adult speaker from the Changing Minds: Stories Over Stigma program, audiences will hear about the two sides of the youth mental health experience. 

Recently updated, this program gives caring adults practical strategies to empower them to start a mental health conversation with the youth in their lives. Audiences will leave this presentation with a deeper understanding of:

• The mental health continuum
• The most common youth mental health challenges and concerns
• The role of connection in healing and resilience
• How to effectively support youth and access resources

This 90-minute program can be adapted to meet the needs of parents, caregivers, school personnel, conference attendees, and the community at large. In addition to being an inclusive introduction to mental health, this presentation can be adjusted to be more interactive as needed. Just Talk About It can be delivered either in-person or virtually, and handouts are available to attendees.

Benefits

Research from SAMHSA reveals that 1 in 3 young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 experienced a mental, behavioral, or emotional health issue in the past year. USDHHS estimates 49.5% of adolescents has had a mental health disorder at some point in their lives. Stigma and shame are sometimes the greatest barriers to treatment for a mental health challenge. Prolonged stress and untreated mental health challenges and conditions can negatively impact emotional, social, and academic development and lead to the use of harmful coping skills like non-suicidal self-injury, substance misuse, disordered eating, perfectionism, digital self-harm, and suicide ideation. Suicide is the second leading cause of death of individuals between the ages of 10 and 24 (CDC) and 50% of mental illnesses that occur in a lifetime begin by age 14 (WHO). 

Just Talk About It is an opportunity for adults to be educated on the signs, symptoms, and factors influencing a mental health challenge, providing information and skills to act before a crisis hits.

Just Talk About It es una oportunidad para que los adultos se eduquen sobre los signos y síntomas de un problema de salud mental, dando conocimientos para actuar antes de que llegue una crisis.