Mt. Vernon High School will conduct the Rise Above It mental health workshop at 4:30 p.m. Sept. 11 for kids ages 13 and older and for parents. The workshop is sponsored by Health 365, part of Hancock Health, and is designed to teach how to cope with life’s stress and challenges.
MVHS counselor Lee Larkins said the seminar was held in Greenfield three consecutive years, but this year, the goal is to bring it into schools.
“They have multiple breakout sessions on topics ranging from addiction to vaping to anger management to anxiety, depression – just about everything,” Larkins said. “We have some speakers who will be speaking on those topics. We wanted to start doing it in the high school and hopefully get more community involvement through that. Pretty much, our goals are to be able to educate the parents and students about different signs of mental health and how to deal with it, how to come up with some coping strategies when they do see something like that.”
Approximately 40 vendors will attend. Admission is free and a free dinner will be offered. Registration is required. Larkins wants to see at least 2,000 people attend. The last Q&A session will be conducted at 7:45 p.m.
Healthy 365 is a department within Hancock Regional Hospital designed to focus on all aspects of wellness within community health. Amanda Hinkle, Healthy 365 system of care coordinator for Hancock County, said one of her roles is to put on an annual mental health awareness event.
“When we started having discussion about this year’s mental health awareness event, we decided we wanted to take it out of Greenfield, and Mt. Vernon High School offered to be the first school to offer this particular event,” she said.
Free shuttle service will be offered from each of the other three school districts in Hancock County. Shuttles will depart at 4:15 p.m. from each school. They will depart from Mt. Vernon High School at 8:30 p.m. to return families to their districts.
“I think it’s going to be a pretty cool event,” Larkins said. “We are the first school hosting it, so it is a lot of work, but we have a lot of great things going on.”
For more or to register, visit behealthy365.org/riseaboveit/?utm_term=Register%20Now&utm_campaign=Rise%20Above%20It%20-%20September%202019&utm_content=email&utm_source=Act-On+Software&utm_medium=email&cm_mmc=Act-On%20Software-_-email-_-Rise%20Above%20it%20Workshop-_-Register%20Now.
