The 23rd annual Building Bridges Conference kicks off this Saturday, March 3, 2018. This years topic: Mental Health: Exploring the Unacknowledged Civil Rights Journey.

This day-long conference will focus on mental health issues using an intersectional lens, aiming to dismantle the stigmas that surround mental illness, while also addressing the accessibility of mental health care and care in disadvantaged communities.

Conference Co-Chairs Quinn Andersen and Liz Toeben are most excited for a new addition to this year’s schedule. Kicking off the conference will be a social justice chamber choir complete with a choreographed dance.

“We did our run through the other night, and I honestly started crying after they walked on stage and did that transition. It’s a really beautiful and moving performance and that’s right at the beginning of the day,” Andersen said.   

Following this there will be four workshops held throughout the day, followed by an Interpretive Walk Through and a Highlighted Panel. The Walk Through is an interactive experience through visual and performance act to explore the ways our culture perpetuates and normalizes mental health stigma and discrimination. This piece will simulate a museum experience as each classroom will have an exhibit. Conference attendees are free to walk through at their own pace, making it a unique experience for each individual. This experience will take place on the second floor of Beck Hall at 3:10pm.

Leah Ida Harris is the first keynote speaker will be giving her address in the morning. Harris is a mental health and suicide prevention advocate, as well as a speaker, writer, and social entrepreneur. She has spent the last thirteen years working as a grassroots advocate for rights and access to support for individuals and families in crisis. Harris is a survivor herself of self-injury, suicide attempts, and multiple adverse childhood experiences. Harris will also lead one of the workshops, speaking From Punishment to Healing: Breaking Cycles of Criminalization.

Deborah Prothrow-Stith, M.D. will present a keynote address in the afternoon. Prothrow-Stith is currently the Dean and a Professor at Charles R. University College of Medicine in Los Angeles, CA. She is a internationally recognized leader in public health and has also been recognized as one of the creators of a nationwide social movement to prevent violence.

“Quinn and I both were talking about doing the mental health of refugees or looking at mental health within people from the LGBTQAI+ community. We kept coming back to the common theme of wanting to look at the mental health of refugees or looking at the mental health of the LGBTQAI+ community. It’s not really fair to just do the mental health of a single community because there are so many other disparities that they’re faced with and the discrimination that happens within that,” Toeben said.

After announcing the theme in October, the Co-Chairs received an outpouring of support from the campus. Living on a college campus, students acknowledged that mental health is an everyday struggle for many and one that needed to be addressed. It really resonated with students, with many reporting that it just made sense.

“My favorite part about planning it has been working with marketing. They do so much to support us, help us, and make sure that we stay on track”, Andersen said. “The image on the poster is a very evoking, beautiful image, and we’re really pleased that they were able to give us something that I think fit with what we were going for, which frames and sets the tone for the conference so well.”