Suicide prevention coalition, COPES (Community Outreach for the Prevention of Every Suicide), hosted Transforming Stigma with Mike Veny at the Moton Museum  Sept. 19. The Moton Museum provided a wonderful location for local community members to cool off while listening to the life story of Mike Veny, America’s leading mental health speaker and a high-energy drum circle facilitator.

A 2017 PM360 ELITE Award Winner, Mike delivered an inspirational personal account of his life. Mike is considered one of the 100 most influential people in the health care industry. He starred in several Recovery Diaries documentary films, two of which were featured at the 2017 Reel Minds Film series. With 15 years’ experience, telling his story to audiences around the world, seven of those spent focusing on mental health, Mike uses drumming to better connect with his audience.

In speaking with Mike on the phone after the event, he mentioned being a fairly perceptive guy and felt the audience understood what he was saying about the stigma surrounding mental health diagnosis. However, he also got the sense that, “We don’t talk about that around here,” from audience members who spoke with him at the end of his presentation. He felt that there was still a bit of reservation and that they were able to only partly disclose their feelings or experiences. Mike said that his goal is to have a “cultural habit of disclosure” because we should not have to hold an event to talk about mental health, it should be part of our everyday conversations. Mike hopes that people who are struggling with mental health issues would have the courage to ask for help while feeling they are not being judged or stigmatized.

To learn more about Mike, go to www.transformingstigma.com.