(upbeat music) - The Mental Wellness Alliance is hosting its third annual Back to School Mental Health event, a day of support, resources, and connection for families and youth.

And joining us are Stormey Nielsen and licensed therapist, Sarah Harris.

Hello, both.

Welcome for being here.

Let's start with you, Sarah.

Why don't you give us a little background on the Alliance and why it's so important to have an event focused on mental health for back to school.

- Yes, yeah, hi, Mary.

- Hi.

- Thank you so much for having us here today.

So Stormey and I, we're licensed therapists with the Mental Wellness Alliance, MWA, and it's a branch of the Black Physicians of Utah, BPOU.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

And we are a group that is dedicated to providing education, resources, events, to Black Utahans and other marginalized populations out here.

It's something I'm very passionate about and just elevating mental health wellness in our community.

Nowadays, especially with schools starting back in August, we see so many parents are just stressed out, trying to balance work, personal life, all of these things.

And then I'm seeing an increase in anxiety and depression, especially with our youth and our children.

And so we really wanted to create an event that's accessible, affordable, and lots of fun stuff for our community out here.

- Ah, wonderful.

Oh great cause, great cause.

So Stormey, why don't you talk about the event specifically and what's happening?

- Of course, yeah.

So this is our third annual Back to School Mental Health Day.

In the past we've covered topics like suicide or social media usage and how that does affect our mental health.

And so what it consists of is, you know, different breakout groups.

We're focusing on the age ranges of 11 to 18, so that middle school and up, and their parents as well.

So we'll have breakouts for the younger bunch of them, for the, you know, more so high school group, and then our parents, and we'll all be kind of co-learning together different things with just our different therapists that have come to help out with this event, and so- - Ah, that's great.

- Yeah.

No, it's been...

It's super great.

It's been super fun in the past and it's just a place of learning.

- Wonderful.

I'm glad you're doing what you're doing and thank you for being here.

- Mm-hmm.

- Thank you.

- And if you'd like to know more about that upcoming event with the Mental Wellness Alliance, it's the third annual Back to School Mental Health, August 16th, 10:00 to 2:30, at the Sorenson Community Center Unity Center.

Go to bpou.org/mwa.

I'm Mary Dickson.

Thanks for watching "Contact."

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