May is Mental Health Awareness Month and Castle Country Radio was able to sit down with Suicide Prevention Specialist, Amanda McIntosh to talk about an upcoming event that is going to bring awareness to mental health.

“We are hosting a free community education dinner for all of Carbon, Emery and Grand Counties, if they want to make the trip into town, on Thursday, May 12 at 6:00 pm. We are having a special keynote speaker her name is Dr. Vonda Jump Norman and she is an expert in her field. She works for the Utah State University in ACES,” stated McIntosh. ACEs is an acronym for Adverse Childhood Experiences. Dr. Norman has worked for nearly 20 years promoting positive parent-child relationships, emphasizing the optimal development of children impacted by diversity, and preventing trauma, educating others about the impact of trauma, and working to actively support healing after trauma.

“Educating our community on what ACEs are initially and then educating them on how we can counter act those negative trauma experiences the more resilient our children can be and the better life span overall we can give the children in our community,” said McIntosh. This community education dinner is open to not only parents and grandparents but it’s for any one that works with children whether that’s educators, school administrators, day-care providers, and youth court officials.

If you are interested in attending this free dinner held at the USU Eastern Jennifer Leavitt Center on May 12 you need to RSVP as soon as possible. “You can find the link on the Facebook page, on the HOPE Squad Facebook page, there’s an event that’s been created and has the https://www.eventbrite.com/ registration. Again, it is free. So sign you up, sign your wife, your husband, whoever, your significant other, grandma, aunt, uncle, whoever is involved in your child’s life should be at this dinner,” explained McIntosh. For further information please call the Southeast Utah Health Department at (435) 637-3671.