Straight Talk: Mental Health… It’s Out Here!

BlueBack Health Principal, Eric Thompson recently sat down with Stacey Walker, MA, the Education and Program Coordinator at New Canaan Cares, for our latest session of Straight Talk. The independent, New Canaan, CT based not for profit, New Canaan Cares provides responsive educational and support programs at no cost… to advance the health and wellbeing of youth and their families. 

So, what motivated BlueBack Health and NCC to have this conversation? At a time when psychological distress amongst all people, especially the young, is on the rise, anxiety and depression constitute more than 40% of mental health disorders in young people. The CV-19 Pandemic has only exacerbated this disturbing trend. Everything from quarantine, economic hardship, social unrest, missed milestones and loss of routine have sent our most vulnerable into a tailspin. School-age children are experiencing unprecedented levels of sadness, anxiety, and loneliness. BlueBack Health fosters these important conversations with regional experts who have their “feet on the street” providing real time support to those in need. Tune in for an eye-opening, yet reassuring conversation covering the importance of establishing and maintaining healthy boundaries, working on fostering self-esteem and confidence from a young age to build lifelong resiliency and why it’s ok to sometimes watch our children fail. 

With a career that began as an educator in the inner-city public schools of New York, Stacey quickly realized that mental health and education were integral components to the family dynamic. Stacey began offering parent workshops and created an afterschool club to promote wellness and growth within her students and their families. Stacey began working for New Canaan Cares in 2017 and finds much purpose in her work in the advancement of health and wellbeing of youth and their families through educational and leadership programming. New Canaan Cares is hard at work helping to form resilient, future community leaders. To learn more please visit: NewCanaanCares.org

BlueBack Health is an employee benefit and wellness consulting company that provides bottom-up solutions to the most common health insurance problems most employers face today. We tailor our employee and wellness plans for each employer’s specific needs.  Our Wellness and Health Insurance plans provide valuable resources that can be leveraged to help educate, support and improve quality of life for clients and their loved ones when life throws you a curveball. We are solving the most pressing health insurance problems with an innovative approach to addressing the needs of the whole person. Because we know the truth, our approach is different. Visit us at www.bluebackhealth.com