A former Columbia mayoral candidate is organizing Saturday’s youth mental health summit at a local church.
Event organizer Tanya Heath tells reporters that the event is free and open to the public. Ms. Heath says the aim is to give parents and community members real skills to help all kids now and to give them a great start to the upcoming school year:
“The ultimate parent’s guide to youth mental health is to equip parents with the best strategies to support their child through stress, trauma and challenges,” Ms. Heath says.
Ms. Heath says the more we can learn as a community, support our youth and each other, the faster positive transformation will happen.
Saturday’s youth mental health summit is from 2-4 pm at Community United Methodist Church on West Broadway. Heath is encouraging parents and residents to attend, saying parents will learn numerous skills to guide the youth:
“Number one, identifying forms of trauma. Two, recognizing common symptoms of mental illness. Three, risk factors and how to reduce them, and that’s going to be through skills of resiliency,” says Heath.
She is inviting experts with backgrounds in social work, trauma counseling and heart ministry to attend.
A mid-Missouri broadcaster, professional speaker and life coach is helping Tanya Heath organize the youth mental health summit. Kat Schudel is best known for the “Cosmo and Kat” morning show on Zimmer sister station Y-107. She’s also dedicated her time at church and in the community to help our youth, telling reporters we have to continue to be educated:
“If we continue educating ourselves as adults, as community members, as parents, then we’re going to be able to share our experiences when we get any moment with whoever our audience is, the world around us. And we’re going to be able to use those experiences kind of as our purpose,” Schudel says.
Doors at the church will open at 1:30 on Saturday afternoon.
