Pride: A Path to Self-Care

New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic You Got This program hosts LGBTQ+ Wellness Event on June 5th at Marigny Opera House Doors open at 5:30 PM. The event is free to the public; donations gladly accepted.

In celebration of June Pride Month, the NOMC’s You Got This Mental Health Initiative presents “Pride: A Path to Self Care,” a community event presenting leaders and performers in the LGBTQ+ Community sharing their paths of prideful mental wellness and offering support to the wider community with a conversation that promotes awareness, advocacy, compassion and helps build a community of self-advocates who support one another.

You Got This a compassionate local coalition of performing arts medicine and mental health advocates who have come together with a call of action. Event Partners include the National Alliance on Mental Illness New Orleans Chapter (NAMI), LSU Health Sciences School of Medicine: Section of Community and Population Medicine, Odyssey House and more.

Services offered at the event include:
-The option to participate in a research study about mental health in the LGBTQ community
-Hepatitis C and HIV testing
-Specialized Mental Health Resources
-Mental Health Counselors on site
-Panel Discussion
-Refreshments

Across the country suicide rates have surged to a 30-year high, between 1999 and 2014 alone, the suicide rate rose by 24 percent. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer/Questioning (LGBTQ) individuals are almost 3 times more likely than others to experience a mental health condition such as major depression or generalized anxiety disorder. Today, more mental health professionals have positive attitudes toward the LGBTQ community, yet the community still faces unequal care due to lack of training and/or understanding.Event will feature You Got This Task Force members Gian Duran (Bravo’s Southern Charm: New Orleans and Durand Groups: Loving Hearts Founder), Miranda Pollock (MPH and project coordinator for RADD Study, which is taking a close look at mental health and resillency in the LGBTQ community), and Sarah Zoogbi (Loyola Center of Counseling and Education and Community Care Department Member of the Southern Rep Theater). There will also be a panel featuring noted local performers from the LGBTQ+ community sharing their paths to self discovery and those who helped them find their unique identities, including Arthur Severio (aka Reba Douglas, Gay Activist photographer and drag performer for over 25 years), Ms. Cody Smith MS, LPC (drummer and mental health professional at New Orleans Counseling and Hypnosis Center), Tonya Smith (noted entertainer and HIV Counselor at Brotherhood), and Ida Snell (Graduate Student at Loyola’s Counseling in Clinical Mental Health specializing in LGBTQ+ identity and psychology).

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Support for this event and the overall #YouGotThis mental health initiative is generously provided by Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS is one of the nation’s leading industry-based, nonprofit AIDS fundraising and grant-making organizations that helps men, women and children across the country and across the street receive lifesaving medications, health care, nutritious meals, counseling and emergency financial assistance. Learn more at broadwaycares.org