The Heart-Mind-Body Health Initiative is the result of a 20-year evolution that started in 1999. At the time, I met Rita Cronise at a seminar on suicide at Rochester’s Strong Memorial Hospital. She suggested I start a support group for parents who had children with pediatric bipolar disorder.
Without experience of running a support group, I contacted the hospital and was offered a conference room at no charge to hold support group meetings. Several months later, I became a local chapter of the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA), the first and only support group of its kind.
In 2006, I produced a video trailer to to finance a documentary on pediatric bipolar disorder. The 6-minute video, True Child Within, interviewed the top medical researchers in the Northeast. The documentary was not funded, but Dr. Mary Fristad, one of the medical researcher I had interviewed, urged me reboot the project.
This led me to enroll in the Parent Leadership Training Institute (PLTI). All PLTI members are required to develop a community project. My project was the Heart Mind Body Health Initiative that has two goals:
1. To increase the number of peer-led support groups by certified facilitators in the Rochester area to improve the mental health of parents, family members and their children.
2. Produce an educational documentary that investigates the crisis affecting children’s mental health and will feature effective, low-cost therapies that can teach how positive health outcomes for individuals and communities can be achieved.
Local support groups will serve unserved and underserved communities, such as the Spanish-speaking community, deaf and hard of hearing, teens and a collaborative problem-solving group for families and their children. All groups will be run by certified peer facilitators and who have lived experience.
The HeartMindBodyHealth.org website (still under development) will feature articles, podcasts, videos and related medical and scientific resources to enable individuals and families to cooperatively chart their personal health journeys with the medical professionals and health resources they currently use.
The documentary will investigate the toxic stressors that drive poor health outcomes, how these stressors can be managed, and explore the Science of Hope. It will be distributed nationally and is expected to take 3 to 5 years to complete. It will use interviews with medical experts, children and parents, and produced by an team of video production professionals.
Toxic stressors include:
- Trauma and PTSD
- Poor Nutrition
- Lack of Exercise
- Insufficient Sleep Hygiene
- Poor Social Connections
- Financial Hardships
- Homelessness
- Discrimination, Hatred and Harassment
- Physical and Sexual Abuse
- Lack of Self-Esteem and Sense of Purpose
This is not a comprehensive list, but represents issues that prevent people from living healthy, happy and meaningful lives.
The Science of Hope is scientifically verified through research and is a therapeutic approach shown to improve success in all areas of a person‘s life. It will be taught by the Initiative and investigated in the documentary. The Science of Hope encourages all people to understand they have agency in their life.
heartmindbodyhealth.org 