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About 45 people joined via Zoom on Monday afternoon for the first session of the Alachua County Crisis Centeris annual colloquium on mental well-being.
Parents and students have connected from Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oregon and Pennsylvania to learn more about mental health and wellness. Participants also came from Gainesville and Miami, Florida.
The four-day virtual symposium, “In Transition: Mental Wellness in a Changing World,” includes 22 presentations covering a variety of mental health topics including suicide prevention, wellness, care personal and mindfulness. The presentations are facilitated by crisis center staff, mental health professionals, community partners and educational advisors from several organizations.
The Wellness Symposium has been held annually in September since 2017 in honor of Suicide Prevention Month.
Last year, the symposium evolved from an in-person event to a virtual event. About 350 people signed up from around the world in 2020, according to the crisis centre’s mobile response coordinator, Amanda DiLorenzo-Garcia. This year’s event saw similar attendance with around 350 people registering on Monday. DiLorenzo-Garcia thinks it’s more important than ever to raise awareness during Suicide Prevention Month.
“Prevention is a matter of knowledge,” she said. “It’s about accessing so much in the community year round, so we can help the general public access experts in the field and share information and resources. “
The crisis center received around 3,500 calls each month in 2020, DiLorenzo-Garcia said.
Kimberly Henderson, 45, participant and coordinator of the Elder Abuse project at Elder Options, said she had attended the Crisis Center seminars in previous years and believed they provided the necessary information on the issue. mental health, which are often correlated with his work.
“I often work with clients who have experienced some sort of trauma due to abuse, neglect or exploitation, and mental health often overlaps with trauma and crisis interventions,” she said. “So I always find the topics they come up with to be very useful and relevant to my day-to-day work with clients. “
Originally, Henderson said the pre-pandemic symposia focused on youth mental health and wellness as well as suicide prevention and awareness. At the time, Henderson was the mother of two high school teens who had several friends who committed suicide.
“It was important for me to go and learn more about how to prevent suicide and what kind of resources are available so that I can be a resource for other people who may have suicidal problems and thoughts”, she declared.
At 5:30 p.m. on Monday, Henderson logged in as the director of the Alachua County Crisis Center and this year’s keynote speaker, Ali Martinez, welcomed everyone to the first session of the virtual symposium.
Martinez began with a presentation on the impact of disconnection, stigma and shame on mental health and suicide risk. She also included information on current data and research trends and shared different prevention strategies and tips on self-compassion in these difficult times.
“I think it’s important that we talk about it, and as I encourage you at the individual community level to have these really tough conversations, to also talk about what it means to us and how we take care of it. us doing it, “she said. “We tend to be really, really hard on ourselves.”
With the session switched to an open discussion, participants flooded the chat with messages or freed themselves to share their thoughts, feelings and experiences on mental health issues and well-being.
Other sessions held on day one included “Yoga and Mindfulness”, “Mental Health Representation: Identifying Barriers to Using Services”, “The Medicalization of Wellness” and “Fill Your Cup: Self -compassion for caregivers, counsel and teachers. ”
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of national survey data, 11% of adults, 26% being young adults, reported suicidal thoughts during the pandemic. From 2019 to 2021, adults reported having symptoms of anxiety and / or depression increased by 274%.
The virtual symposium continued through Thursday from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., presenting topics such as burnout, mental health effects of the pandemic, psychiatric medications, coping skills, Black mental health and the benefits of exercise.
Even if registrations for the event closed at 5 p.m. on Monday, DiLorenzo-Garcia said people can still Register now for the event. The Crisis Center provides 24-hour suicide counseling and telephone services to all residents of Alachua County. You can contact the center at 352-264-6785 for help and more information about the other services they offer.
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