Connecting Adolescent Health Professionals
This event worked to increase adolescent health professionals’ capacity to support adolescents’ mental health needs through culturally responsive, youth-centered practices.
Connection Sessions are day-long conferences focusing on one specific topic in adolescent health for an interdisciplinary audience of health care professionals, including physicians, nurses, social workers, health center managers, and other youth-serving community professionals. These professional development opportunities aim to connect health professionals to community resources and others in the field.
The 2023 Connection Session, Intersections: Supporting youth, their identities, and their mental health needs across disciplines, took place on Wednesday, September 20, 2023. This event worked to increase adolescent health professionals’ capacity to support adolescents’ mental health needs through culturally responsive, youth-centered practices. The event supported attendees in developing actionable strategies around being an “askable adult” as it relates to mental health, acquiring community-centered resources, and building cross-discipline collaboration. Centering the voices of communities marginalized by systems of power was at the core of the event and equipped attendees to better understand mental health in the context of intersectionality.
Highlights included a spoken word youth performance by Tyshae Brady (she/they), a grounding activity with members from AHI’s Teen Advisory Council (TAC TAC) and Amorie Robinson (she/her) Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist, and a Culturally Responsive Practices Panel with Anthany Beasley (he/him), MSW, LMSW; Avida Johnson (she/her), MSW, TIY (Trauma Informed Yoga Therapist), Chef; Jonathan Edwards (he/him), LMSW, Mental Health Therapist; and Brandie Schulz (she/her), LMSW, Clinical Social Worker.
As a result of the 2023 Connection Session, AHI created a new Spark training, Principles of Trauma-Informed Care for Adolescent Patients, which is meant to deepen your understanding of how trauma impacts adolescent patients and show how to create trauma-informed spaces to support their health and well-being.
