Read the headlines, watch the news or simply live with a teen and you know that the risk is real.
According to a 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, about 16 percent of Wisconsin high school students reported suicidal thoughts, attempts and/or related injuries. About 27 percent of students experienced symptoms of depression. Countless more likely suffer in silence.
That’s why Amy Lovell and Brooke Talbot are fighting for mental wellness with all their might. Lovell, board president of the local nonprofit REDgen (Resilience through EDucation for a new generation), and Talbot, the organization’s executive director, understand the importance of making wellness part of a school’s overall culture.
REDgen’s student-led chapters in local middle schools and high schools advocate for health and wellness and work to reduce the stigma that is often attached to mental illness. “We know that when students are struggling, they go to each other,” Talbot explains. “And when their power is to be change agents, that’s really when the culture starts changing.”
Students in REDgen chapters create activities focused on specific areas of wellness, because education is essential to building the lasting ability to cope with daily pressures and to prevent mental health crises.
Lovell notes that REDgen’s educational efforts include community outreach, such as a noted speaker series co-sponsored by University School. On March 16, and in partnership with Daniel Goldin of Boswell Books, New York Times best-selling author Lori Gottlieb will speak at a fundraising luncheon for REDgen. Gottlieb, author of “Maybe You Should Talk to Someone,” is a psychotherapist and columnist at The Atlantic.
REDgen is also organizing a “train the trainer” event featuring the Circle of Security, a protocol designed to strengthen the attachment between parent and child from infancy through adulthood. The protocol is based on the idea that strong connections with caregivers from a child’s early years will build a solid foundation for wellness. Dr. Neil W. Boris, a specialist in infant psychiatry, will lead the training from April 28 through May 1. Both Lovell and Talbot have been trained as Circle of Security facilitators and are excited to bring it to this area.
Lovell explains that REDgen was developed in response to a teen suicide, and its emphasis is on prevention. Talbot adds that the symptoms of mental illness in youth can often present themselves as physiological problems such as headaches, and that lack of sleep and poor nutrition may also affect a young person’s mental health.
That’s why, Lovell stresses, it is important to take a holistic approach to health and wellness. In partnership with her husband, Marquette University President Michael Lovell, Ph.D., Lovell has also been instrumental in raising the profile of “trauma-informed care,” through the trauma-recovery program SWIM (Scaling Wellness in Milwaukee). She says trauma can exacerbate mental health issues, particularly in families struggling with poverty.
As part of the program’s launch, Lovell brought pediatric trauma expert Dr. Nadine Burke Harris to Milwaukee to speak about resilience, an event that drew in 800 people.
“If you are well-resourced and dealing with mental health, it’s a long, hard journey,” Lovell points out. “If you’re having trouble putting food on your table and paying your rent, mental health is really, really low on the list. We’re trying to elevate a lot of the great work that’s being done in the community, as well as to connect people to one another.”
Because, the women agree, strong relationships, vibrant local resources and support from family and friends help young people build a culture of wellness that will help them through the tough times now and into the future.
Says Talbot, “It’s not avoiding difficult things in life, but having the foundation and resilience to go through those and grow through those.” — Nan Bialek