Teen Advisory Board 7/9/2016

Present:  Chris, Kara, Haneen, Bella, Meep, Luke, Lauren, Julia

Special guest:  Geoff Milam, Pasadena Health Department

 

Two months ago, the Teen Advisory Board launched a mental health initiative to increase awareness and discussions around topics of mental health, provide specialized services and programs for teens, family and friends, provide training for staff, and maintain a well-stocked, vetted, mental health resource center. The Initiative is completely teen driven. From inception to implementation, the Teen Advisory Board provided library staff with direction and feedback to sustain a mental health resource center, provide their peers with free access to mental health resources, and programs to advocate for teens with mental illness.

This summer, the TAB teens have started assembling a very large list of mental health resources and adding to our reading list.  They will also be working on library brochures and possible awareness events, reviewing books and movies for discussions around topics of mental health, and surveying their peers on what kind of support they would like to see from our community.

This July, Geoff Milam from the Pasadena Public Health Department attended the TAB meeting to show his support for our Mental Health Initiative. He spoke about his work with the Health Dept. and the possibility of partnering with the library and TAB to bring in more support for youth (such as counseling sessions or information sharing). He talked about Project Wraparound, a program aimed at enhancing mental wellbeing of youth and families. The program provides individualized care to children and youth ages 0-21 with serious emotional and behavioral challenges. He talked about social work and social workers, effectively de-stigmatizing social work as a result. There are different groups of social workers, but the bottom line is that social workers help people solve and cope with problems in their everyday lives. They help connect people with appropriate information and services (a bit like a librarian!).


Agenda:

  • Announcements
  • Visit with Geoff Milam from the Health Dept.
  • Planning
    • Laser Tag planning – Julia & Chris
    • Night Vale – Bella & Madison
    • YA Book Clubs in the fall – Kara & Madison ~ Sept & Oct books should be book festival titles
    • Ingress planning – Meep
    • Murder Mystery – all of TAB
    • Doodle poll – scheduling more meetings

Announcements: ~ Progress on Mental Health Initiative

  • Sat. Sept. 3 at 4pm:  Mental Health Resource Center grand opening reception — tentative  (This event is contingent on whether we receive the display unit on time.)  ~ Jane will contact partners and organizations for info sharing.
  • Sat. Sept. 17 at 12pm:  Pasadena Loves YA — a teen book festival at Pasadena Central Library.  Meet 19 young adult authors. Our opening speaker will be Aija Mayrock, award-winning teen author of The Survival Guide to Bullying.  This is a very important topic to address as kids who are bullied can have lasting mental health issues.  http://www.pasadenateenbookfestival.com/ ~ Jane is working with the author on the possibility of an additional speech for a middle school.
  • Meep is nearly done with the Resource list online: http://cityofpasadena.libguides.com/webteen/health
  • Chris is almost done with the Reading list:  http://cityofpasadena.libguides.com/teenbooks/mentalhealth
  • Ms. Deb and Jane have been working on partnerships with:  Teen Line, Pasadena Public Health Dept., [possibly] NAMI, and [possibly] DayOne
  • Ms. Deb has secured funding and working with Teen Line to present webinars this fall
  • Jane will make an announcement at the next City Senior Managers Group meeting about the Initiative.
  • Next step for TAB: brochures, movie selections, & marketing
  • Jane will work with TAB to develop a mental health advocacy tool kit for youth.

These notes are for record purposes only. For more information about attending events, please see our website:  http://cityofpasadena.net/library/teens/events_and_programs/

To join the Teen Advisory Board, the application and description can be found on our website:  http://cityofpasadena.net/library/teens/volunteering/#Teen_Advisory_Board