Mental Health Awareness Conference for Teens, Parents, and Individuals

• 7% of youth (or 1.8 million adolescents and teens) experience severe depression. These youth experienced very serious interference in school, home and in relationships (Polaris Teen Center).

• 17.2% of high school students in the US have had serious thoughts of suicide (National Alliance on Mental Illness).

• Depression and bipolar disorder affect approximately 14% of youth age 13-17 (Polaris Teen Center).

• Anxiety disorders affect 25.1% of children between 13 and 18 years old (Anxiety and Depression Association of America).

​​

These statistics may come as a shock to you or they may not, but the fact remains that something must change. Teens struggle daily with the effects of mental illness, feeling worthless, hopeless, anxious, and alone. These numbers of hurting teens are going up, not down, and one of the best things to remedy this is to spread awareness and understanding regarding types of mental illness, signs and symptoms, and ways to cope. When you realize there is a problem in the first place, then you can begin to fix it.

This is why I have planned this conference. To spread the word on mental health for teens and their parents to begin to recognize their own problems so that they may begin to fix them. To inform adolescents on the best ways to help their friends when they are working through their own problems. To show any person fighting a battle with themselves that there are people who care and ways to win. To remind us all that we are In This Together.