Events: Camas Wellness Festival Addresses Mental Health Issues
Camas, WA — Organizers for the upcoming Camas Wellness Festival see a growing need for communities to address mental and emotional health issues, so they’re taking action.
The festival, which is set for October 13, from 10 am-5 pm at multiple Downtown Camas locations, was organized by Kimberly Berry, Erika Levy, and Aspen Tufares.
The festival provides resources for empowering families. There is an Adolescent Mental Health Summit, sessions for Early Learning Wellness, Postnatal Wellness, Dance and Yoga and Embody Love workshops that empower girls to find their inner beauty, commit to kindness and make meaningful change in the world. The festival also serves as a fundraiser for Dance Evolution, a 501c3 nonprofit, promoting health and wellness in Camas.
Berry is the producer of the Adolescent Mental Health Summit, which takes place in Camas, and will tackle tough subjects like suicide and depression. Levy is a yoga instructor at Empress Yoga (www.empressyoga.com)and will teach the benefits of her work to parents and children at the festival, and Tufares is teaching “Mindful Movement for Disabilities,” which is a workshop for parents or caregivers and children — and she is also teaching “Moving Meditation” for adults.
Berry is also the founder of Being UnNormal, a consulting and advocacy group that assists parents navigate the world of mental health through a peer support model. She is also the host of the podcast Being UnNormal which explores issues within the mental health community with a specific emphasis on children’s mental health issues.
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Together, they approached local mental health professionals that will tackle tough topics during the daylong festival, which has workshops, yoga classes, and forums that are designed to take the stigma out of mental health issues.
The Adolescent Mental Health Summit has multiple sessions at the Camas Public Library that will address anxiety, depression, mindful parenting, youth suicide prevention, performance culture, academic stress, stress management, coping skills, and more. These workshops are presented by professional counselors and mental health advocates. All of the sessions are free.
You can pre-register for the festival at: www.CamasWellnessFestival.com
“We had five local suicides last year,” said Levy. “That’s five too many, and once we started to reach out to teachers and members of the community we saw a great need. Teachers will discuss what they’re seeing in schools. Parents aren’t always accepting or understanding so we’ll have open and honest discussions about what is happening. They may not understand what it is, and don’t have the tools to know how to identify mental health. This festival will help with understanding.”
The festival also provides several yoga and dance sessions, which will be held at Dance Evolution, Flow Hot Yoga, Evolutions Preschool, Lisa Le Properties, A Boutique Experience. These sessions are free.
“We’ve turned it into a community-based team focus, that will empower parent-child relationships to help them flourish,” said Berry. We’ll also teach how to identify drug issues. And did you know that 50 percent of the student population has tried Adderall? The parents feel shame and guilt, and my role is to bring everybody together to educate our community. We can actually make a change.”
Teachers can get Washington Clock Hours for attending 3+ hours of the Adolescent Mental Health Summit. They can even get a STEM credit for attending the session Inspiring Children in STEM. Details will be posted to the website soon.
The festival also has a CLOSING CEREMONY at Salud! Wine Bar, which includes a raffle with some great prizes donated by local businesses. This is the fundraiser for the festival.
To learn more about the festival, and to register for the session, please visit: www.CamasWellnessFestival.com
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It’s time we’re clear about the term mental health. It’s a politically charged marketing term. That’s according to the National Institute of Health, part of the US Government, the term mental health “is a political and ideological movement involving diverse segments of society, interested in the promotion of the human rights of people with mental disorders and the quality of their treatment.” Worse, it now seems to be a term that’s abused by those seeking to peddle new age solutions like yoga, dance, boutique shopping, and real estate. It’s not clear if there’s a separate sales effort to ’embody love’ or not, or what that would mean precisely. How exactly does one ’embody love’? And clock hours for teachers, the same teachers that illegally struck this year? What are those about? Are they paid for going to seminars put on by yoga studios? And parents feeling guilt and shame? Not to be a down-sayer, but that’s f-ing unbelievable.