Adolescent Mental Health Conference Addresses Marin County Teen Challenges

 

With the goal of illuminating Marin County teen challenges, Newport Academy offers an innovative adolescent mental health conference for healthcare professionals. “Rethinking Teen Mental Health: A Path to Sustainable Healing” provides new research and thought leadership on helping teenagers who are struggling. Hence, the conference aims to reverse the current teen mental health crisis. The event launches in the San Francisco Bay Area December 4 and will return to Palo Alto Jan 24, 2019.

 

By combining a holistic perspective on mental health with evidence-based solutions, the event re-envisions the adolescent mental health conference. The result is a broadly applicable adolescent mental wellness conference. This approach reflects Newport Academy’s core philosophy of supporting teens in mind, body, and spirit.

 

According to Healthy Marin, 39 percent of 11th-grade girls in the county reported experiencing depression in 2016. Moreover, 20 percent of 11-grade students said they used prescription drugs for recreational purposes during the same year. 

 

The Founder and CEO of Newport Academy, Jamison Monroe, empathizes with these Marin County teens. As someone who found a path of long-term recovery when he was young, he understands the challenges faced by Marin youth. He believes a holistic approach is key. “Rethinking Teen Mental Health: A Path to Sustainable Healing” points professionals towards an alternative path to mental health wellness for Marin County teens. 

 

At the adolescent mental health conference, Jamison will speak on Newport Academy’s sustainable approach to healing. It’s an approach that engages the mind-body connection, teen creativity, and overall physical health for mental wellness.

 

Newport Academy’s Vice President of Clinical Outreach, Kristin Wilson, MA, LPC, will present a workshop on “Creativity and the Adolescent Brain.” She delves into research on why creativity is so important for teenagers, and how it can support mental health. Subsequently, experts will present on therapeutic modalities ranging from mindfulness practices and yoga to music therapy and nutrition as medicine.

 

In “Establishing Connections to a Teen’s Inner World: Using the Breath to Heal and Build,” Kristin will join Tommy Rosento share how breathing techniques can help teens balance their emotions. In an experiential session, Kristin will explain how to use the breath in a treatment setting. In a companion session, Recovery 2.0 founder and author Tommy Rosen will discuss how Kundalini Yoga practice can be used therapeutically to center and ground young people in early recovery.

 

Expanding on this multidimensional approach, Jeffrey Zurofsky, Culinary Program Director for Newport Academy, will elucidate the connection between nutrition, recovery, and healing. In “Food as Medicine,” Jeffrey will show how the cultivation, preparation, and serving of food can be a conduit to good mental health. 

 

Dr. Barbara Nosal, PhD, LMFT, LADC, will lead an informative discussion around the topic of healing relational trauma and healthy ways to generate family harmony. Gaining self-awareness of what often is deeply rooted and unconscious frees us from the need to act out in self-defeating behaviors. This workshop assists clinicians in their therapeutic process with individuals and families and is critical for treatment providers.

 

A session titled “The Power of Music in Teen Mental Health” further expands the horizon of treatment options. Music therapist Tim Ringgold, MT-BC, shares how the inherent structures built into music creation and composition can foster teen connection and enhance well-being. By playing music, a teenager can heal through expression.

 

Given today’s challenges, this Marin County adolescent mental health conference, with its genuinely holistic approach to teen mental health treatment, offers vital resources. For more information about “Rethinking Teen Mental Health: A Path to Sustainable Healing,” please email Kim Fuller at [email protected] or call (615) 308-0958.