BOISE, Idaho — Hill City Church, True Hope Church, and Cathedral of the Rockies are coming together for a mental health workshop on February 6 and 7. The Parent workshop/youth night is in partnership with Speak Out PDX, an Oregon based organization that equips parents and students with tools to tackle mental health topics.
- The group of therapists and psychiatrists with church leaders will give people a scope of practice to address mental health needs.
- The event is at Hill City church at 615 N 9th St. Boise.
- Both events are from 7-9 p.m. and are free to local students and parents.
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story.)
We begin with mental health. It's a conversation that grows evermore important in today's culture and three local churches are partnering together in hopes that more people will speak out about it.
“Deep thoughts, their troubling thoughts things that they can't easily put into words,” said Jamie Drake, Boise resident.
Tackling tough conversations.
Topics like suicide, depression, anxiety. They all can be hard to address but are conversations that Jamie and Chris Drake want everyone to become better at.
“We need to understand why and how to ask those deeper level questions and to look for little signs that you might not even see,” said Chris Drake, Boise resident.
In October the Drake’s lost their son Tucker to suicide. With community rallying around them, now they are hoping the community will respond by talking more about mental health.
“What if we helped to create resources to help educate parents and mentors, youth pastors with warning signs, tools to help navigate mental health and really create a scope of practice,” said Lauren Wilson, Founder of Speak Out PDX.
That's the question Lauren Wilson wanted to answer when she created Speak Out, a workshop partnering with churches to give parents and students the tools to tackle mental health topics.
“We don't have a lot of people who are actually talking about the tools in order to navigate that and so we are seeing just a lot of young people identify with, I am anxious, or I am depressed, or I am, and it becomes all of their identity,” said Wilson.
The Drake’s know this conversation is not easy to address but an important one to bring up and through workshops like Speak Out people will be able to do what their son was best at. Loving fearlessly.
“What I hope is that we start connecting as people that we start connecting together one on one and asking for help with folks and sharing what's on their mind,” said Chris Drake.
The event runs through the sixth and the seventh and is free to the public. Parents and students are invited to come to learn more about topics regarding mental health.
