KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Mental Health KC is an informative, timely and comprehensive day-and-a-half conference focused on educating the public about mental health and overall mental wellbeing for all. The in-person conference will take place at the Cerner Innovations Campus, 8779 Hillcrest Road, Kansas City, Mo., and registration is open for only $50 at mentalhealthkc.org.
Centered on the theme of “thriving and maintaining mental resilience during and following a pandemic,” the 2022 conference is in its eighth year drawing hundreds of professionals from throughout the Greater Kansas City Metro and beyond. The conference was designed to help reduce the stigma of mental illnesses and elevate mental health dialogues in the workplace during the month of May – Mental Health Awareness Month.
The conference sessions are aimed at local business leaders, HR professionals, educators, government leaders, healthcare workers, general community members and more.
The event is known for and takes special effort to discover and schedule well-known keynote speakers and local and regional subject-matter experts who are adept in speaking on interesting topics of behavioral health and well-being for its 36 breakout sessions.
Some of the session topics include:
- Grief and Loss
- Mental Health in the Workplace
- How to Talk to Youth about Mental Health and Resiliency
- Suicide Prevention and Stigma
- What is the Great Resignation?
- Compassion and Continuity of Care During the Pandemic
- Sustainable Stress Management
- Beating Burnout
This year the conference will have multiple keynote speakers. On Thursday, May 12, Dr. Susan Biali Haas will open the conference with a keynote session on burnout prevention, stress management and resilience. An award-winning medical doctor, Dr. Biali Haas’s life passion is to equip people with the knowledge, skills and tools to enjoy optimal mental health, avoid burnout and increase their resilience. Formerly clinically depressed and burned out, Dr. Biali Haas turned her life around by extensively studying how to overcome these two debilitating conditions.
Then on Friday, Jason Kander and Diana Kander will open the second day of the conference. Jason Kander is a Kansas Citian who has become a national figure in political circles. His name was in discussions of future presidential candidates while the former Missouri Secretary of State was running for Mayor of Kansas City, Mo. To the surprise of many, he dropped out of that race on October 2, 2018, revealing that he was suffering from PTSD and depression after having served as a Captain in the Army National Guard and working as an intelligence officer in Afghanistan. Jason has written Invisible Storm, a book which will be released by HarperCollins on July 5, 2022. In it, he writes about his experience with PTSD.
Diana Kander is an author, entrepreneur and national keynote speaker. She contributed her observations to the book, discussing the impact of Jason’s PTSD on her and on their family.
Together, Jason and Diana will talk about how each of them and their family survived their experience with mental illness. They will talk about how the family sustained through challenging treatment and deliver a message of hope and strength.
About Metro Council
The Mental Health KC conference is operated by the Metropolitan Council of Community Mental Health Centers, which represents nine public mental health systems in the Greater Kansas City area. The Metro Council is a collaborative nonprofit organization serving the Greater Metropolitan Kansas City area with education, information and resources to the public on accessing quality mental health services and resources. It is the mission of Metro Council to build a stronger safety net of local community behavioral health centers to provide Kansas Citians with behavioral health services, regardless of who they are, where they live or their ability to pay.
For more information on speakers, the schedule or to register, please visit: Mental Health KC Conference – Metro Council
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