Education for Twin Cities Youth and their Families by Carly Stein, Jewish Family and Children's Service of Minneapolis

Education for Twin Cities Youth and their Families

By Carly Stein

Mental illness. Bullying and peer pressure. Drugs and alcohol. Eating disorders. Sexual assault and dating violence. All of these issues may face youth at one time or another. Healthy Youth-Healthy Communities (HY-HC) is here to help.

Entering its third year, Healthy Youth-Healthy Communities has offered mental health and wellness programming to over 500 Jewish adolescents in Minneapolis and St. Paul at a variety of settings including the Amos & Celia Heilicher Minneapolis Jewish Day School, Alpha Epsilon Phi Jewish Sorority, Herzl Camp, Hillel and Talmud Torah of St. Paul.

Recently a rabbi shared with me a phone call he’d received after a program I conducted for parents and 9th grade students on suicide and depression. One of the parents who had attended thanked the rabbi for having Healthy Youth-Healthy Communities come to their child’s religious school program. The parent went on to say that because of her older son’s depression she had not been paying attention to her younger daughter. After listening to my presentation, she realized that her daughter was also experiencing depression and had been coping with it by self injury (also known as “cutting”). The parent explained that after one of the Healthy Youth-Healthy Communities college interns shared signs of depression, the mom realized what was going on with her daughter, and sought professional help.

Another meaningful experience happened during a session on healthy and unhealthy teen dating relationships at a confirmation class. After attending a Healthy Youth-Healthy Communities multi-night presentation, a student recognized signs that indicated her friend’s mom was suffering in an abusive relationship. The girl connected the mom to the Jewish Domestic Abuse Collaborative (J-DAC) where she received help.

In addition to providing programming to Jewish youth in grades four through college, Healthy Youth-Healthy Communities provides education and training for the community. At one recent program, Taking the Lid off the Black Box of Mental Illness, close to 50 attendees heard author Julie Schumacher read excerpts from her novel about a young girl coping with her sister’s depression. The reading was followed by a discussion on mental illness led by the author and a Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Minneapolis therapist.

Additionally you’ll want to mark your calendars for the 3rd Not Our Kids! Conference on April 25, 2010. The conference, hosted by Healthy Youth-Healthy Communities, will take place at Temple Israel, and include keynote speakers from our community as well as breakout sessions covering a wide variety of health and wellness topics including eating disorders and sober high school options, technology (such as Facebook and sexting) and the impact on our youth. The free conference is open to parents and adults working with adolescents.

Healthy Youth-Healthy Communities is a collaborative of Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Minneapolis and Jewish Family Service of St. Paul, and is a program of the Jewish Community Health Awareness Initiative (JCHAI).

With a variety of preventative topics to choose from, the Healthy Youth-Healthy Communities program strengthens the lives of Jewish youth For more information on programming, events, or volunteer internships, please contact me at cstein@jfcsmpls.org or call me at 952-542-4835.

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Carly Stein, HY-HC Specialist, works for JFCS in collaboration with JFS