With a packed auditorium of Pinellas County excessive schoolers, the sixth Annual “Rising Above” Youth Explosion concluded its three-day occasion with a concentrate on teenagers and psychological well being on Friday, July twenty first. The occasion was hosted by the Clearwater Neighborhood Household Heart, Juvenile Welfare Board, NAMI Pinellas, and St. Petersburg School Clearwater Campus.
Highlights included a dramatic pantomime skit that depicted how psychological sickness have an effect on youth and households, carried out by college students from the Metropolis of Clearwater’s North Greenwood Recreation Heart, Arts Conservatory for Teenagers, and Gibbs Excessive College. The efficiency was adopted by a panel of youth with lived psychological well being experiences who courageously shared their journeys and fielded questions from their friends.
In December 2021, the U.S. Surgeon Basic issued a uncommon public well being advisory on youth psychological well being to handle what he known as an rising disaster exacerbated by pandemic hardships. In Might 2023, the Surgeon Basic as soon as once more issued a warning to Individuals, calling the usage of social media by kids and adolescents an “pressing public well being problem.”
The Juvenile Welfare Board invests within the Pinellas Kids’s Psychological Well being Initiative, partnering with greater than 100 organizations to intervene early within the lives of kids, destigmatize psychological sickness, and host youth suicide prevention conversations to develop hope. The objective is to make caring for one’s psychological well being synonymous with one’s bodily well being.
“At some point, we’ll solely have to say well being and will probably be understood we imply a baby’s bodily and psychological well being,” added Rebecca Albert, Senior Strategic Initiative Supervisor with the Juvenile Welfare Board, who oversees the Kids’s Psychological Well being Initiative.
To be taught extra go to: www.jwbpinellas.org/childrens-mental-health
Editor’s Notice: Obtain featured images and video clips from the occasion: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1mMLF0frQuqiVk5-Uo1Qij_hk6rh_IlZp?usp=drive_link
MEDIA CONTACT: Jennifer Dodd, jdodd@jwbpinellas.org
###
ABOUT JWB: For greater than 75 years, the Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County (JWB) has been investing within the futures of kids to strengthen our neighborhood. Ruled by an 11-member Board and pushed by information, JWB ensures kids are able to be taught, able to succeed, and able to thrive in properties, colleges, and neighborhoods which can be wholesome and secure. In FY22, JWB and our companions served greater than 64,000 kids and households via 85 applications with 50 nonprofit companies. Plus, collective efforts to handle childhood starvation, grade-level studying, and preventable youngster deaths served hundreds extra. In 1946, Pinellas County residents have been the primary within the nation to collectively make kids a precedence by voting to enact the Juvenile Welfare Board Particular Act into legislation. It was the primary time in U.S. historical past {that a} particular taxing district had been created to protect the rights and wishes of kids. Study extra at www.jwbpinellas.org.