The Snohomish County Youth Suicide Prevention Taskforce hosted their annual free youth mental health event ‘You Are Not Alone.’ This event was held Saturday, March 1st at Rosehill Community Center and was dedicated to raising youth mental health awareness, connecting community members to resources for how and where to get support and services, and offering up free trainings, including Narcan and fentanyl awareness: Learn how to administer Narcan (naloxone) to block the effects of an opioid overdose. These trainings included information about what opioid overdose looks like and why the addition of fentanyl increases the danger of overdose. Also included was suicide prevention and knowing the warning signs, and providing youth and families the tools needed to support youth mental health and suicide prevention. The intent for the event was to build hope, resilience, and skills to naviagte crisis for our youth, families, and community.
Several local community based organizations were onsite including Providence Institute for a Healthier Community (PIHC), providing event attendees with the importance of mindfulness and self-care information, positive words of affirmation coloring sheets, and access to PIHC LiveWellLocal.org resource hub for Snohomish County, where folks can find support for local mental health resources in their community. You could also find onsite HOPE Animal-Assisted Crisis Response with their therapy dogs to help destress and provide a sense of comfort for all.
Free food and refreshments were provided onsite and closing the event was a free to register Youth Rocket League Tournament. The Rocket League tournament was a session offered during the event to connect the gaming community with mental health resources and offers strategies for self and peer support through online platforms. Gaming lets us make new friends, build confidence, provides a safe space to fail and build resilience and confidence, facilitates prosocial behaviors and acts as a proxy for in-person contact decreasing social isolation, ultimately gaming can be a catalyst for building communities both in person locally and around the world, no matter where we are, we can connect with friends who care.
A special thank you to Liza Patchen-Short and the entire Snohomish County Youth Suicide Prevention Taskforce for an incredible event, thank you!
If you or someone you know needs support now, call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org.
