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5th Annual Native Youth
School and Community Wellness Conference

Inspiring Change: Native Youth Leadership and Survivance
September 25-26, 2024

About

The Native American Youth Mental Health Conference brings together leaders, educators, mental health practitioners, researchers, Native American youth, elders, and community partners in fields related to Native American Youth mental health and wellness to share up-to-date research and best practices on youth mental health & wellness.

Please join us to discover culturally relevant and science-based strategies to improve the mental health and wellness of Native American youth and families.

Participants will explore topics such as understanding the impact of trauma, neglect, and abuse on the developing brain; the science of mattering and belonging to youth mental health; exploring Indigenous identity and youth wellness; addiction and culture-based recovery strategies for Native youth; Native resilience and giftedness; and the power of peer-to-peer relationships in uplifting Native youth leadership.

Topics

By attending this conference, you will gain knowledge about:

Understanding the impact of trauma, neglect, and abuse on the developing brain
The science of Mattering and Belonging to youth mental health
Exploring Indigenous Identity and Youth Wellness
Addiction and culture-based recovery strategies for Native youth
Native Resilience and Giftedness
The Power of Peer to Peer Relationships and uplifting Native Youth Leadership

Audience

Educators, school administrators, Native American community members, Native American youth, and professionals working with Native American youth.

Agenda

Wednesday September 25, 2024

Time	Topic	Speaker(s)
9:00-9:15	Welcome & Introductions	Virgil Moorehead, PhD & Steven Adelsheim, MD
9:15-10:00	Indigenous Native Language and Youth Mental Health	Mneesha Gellman, PhD
10:00-10:10	Break
10:10-11:00	Native Resilience and Giftedness	Kishan Lara-Cooper, PhD
11:00-11:10	Break
11:10-12:10	Fireside Chat with Tommy Orange	Tommy Orange
12:10-1:00	Lunch
1:00-1:50	Exploring Indigenous Identity	Joseph P. Gone, PhD
1:50-2:00	Break
1:50-2:00	Raffle Activity
2:00-2:50	Native Futurisms and Cultural Resistance	Adrieene Keene, Ed.D
2:50-3:00	Break
3:00-3:40	Chimi Nu' Arariihkanheesh: The Healing Journey	Amy Mathieson, LCSW & Native Youth Leaders
3:40-4:00	Closing	Virgil Moorehead, PhD

Thursday, September 26, 2024

Time	Topic	Speaker(s)
9:00-9:30	Storytelling	Virgil Moorehead, PhD & Ernie Albers
9:30-11:00	Understanding the impact of trauma on the developing brain	Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD
11-11:10	Raffle Activity
11:10-12:00	Reflecting on Work with Justice Involved Native Youth	Judge Abby Abinanti, JD
12:00-1:00	Lunch
1:00-1:50	Science of Mattering and Belonging	Isaac Prilleltensky, PhD
1:50-2:00	Break
2:00-2:40	Uplifting Native Youth Leadership	Native Youth Leaders
2:40-3:00	Concluding Remarks	Virgil Moorehead, PhD & Jeremiah Simmons, PhD

Keynote Speakers

Judge Abby Abinanti, JD

Bio

Abby Abinanti, born in San Francisco in 1947, was the first Native woman to be a member of the Bar. She grew up in Arcata, Ca (Sunny Brae). After studying at the University of New Mexico School of Law, she specialized in family law and child welfare proceedings. She was licensed to practice law in the state of California in 1974. From the 1990s until 2011, she was a law clerk at the Unified Family Court for the San Francisco Superior Court. From 2014 to 2015, she worked part-time as a law clerk for the Family Division of the San Francisco Superior Court. In 1997, Abinanti became a judge of the Yurok Tribal Court and remains its Chief Judge today.

Adrieene Keene, Ed.D.

Bio

Adrienne Keene is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and is a scholar, writer, podcaster, and visual artist. Her research areas include college access, transition, and persistence for American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian Students, including the role of pre-college access programs in student success. Dr. Keene has a deep personal commitment to exploring research methodologies that empower Native communities and privilege Native voices and perspectives, with the ultimate goal of increasing educational outcomes for Native students. A former faculty member at Brown University, Dr. Keene teaches courses on Indigenous Education, Native representations, and Native American Studies more broadly. She earned her BA from Stanford University in Native American Studies and Cultural Anthropology, and her doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, in Culture, Communities, and Education.

Amy Mathieson, LCSW

Bio

Amy Mathieson holds a BA in Psychology from Humboldt State University and an MSW from Humboldt State University. She is also a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and has worked for Two Feathers for over four years. As Youth Leadership Development Program Director at Two Feathers, Amy has helped develop a youth employment program that employs over 50 youth in a year-long leadership program and helps them achieve health and wellness in all areas of their lives. Amy enjoys helping youth identify their goals and dreams and walking beside them as they achieve them.

Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD

Bio

Dr. Perry is the Principal of the Neurosequential Network and a Professor (Adjunct) at the School of Allied Health, Human Services and Sport, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria Australia. Over the last thirty years, Dr. Perry has been an active teacher, clinician and researcher in children’s mental health and the neurosciences. His work on the impact of abuse, neglect and trauma on the developing brain has impacted clinical practice, programs and policy across the world. Dr. Perry is the author of "The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog," a bestselling book based on his work with maltreated children, and "Born For Love: Why Empathy is Essential and Endangered." Dr. Perry's most recent book, What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing (2021) was coauthored with Oprah Winfrey. Dr. Perry was on the faculty of the Departments of Pharmacology and Psychiatry at the University of Chicago School of Medicine (1988 to 1991), the Trammell Research Professor of Child Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. During this time, Dr. Perry also was Chief of Psychiatry for Texas Children's Hospital and Vice-Chairman for Research within the Department of Psychiatry (1992-2001). Dr. Perry served as the Medical Director for Provincial Programs in Children's Mental Health for the Alberta Mental Health Board (2001-2003), and was a Professor (Adjunct) in the Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago from 2009-2024. Dr. Perry, a native of Bismarck, North Dakota, was an undergraduate at Stanford University and Amherst College. He attended medical and graduate school at Northwestern University, receiving both M.D. and Ph.D. degrees. Dr. Perry completed a residency in general psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine and a fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at The University of Chicago.

Ernie Albers

Isaac Prilleltensky, PhD

Bio

Dr. Prilleltensky holds the inaugural Erwin and Barbara Mautner Chair in Community Well-Being at the University of Miami. He has published 12 books and over 140 articles and chapters. His interests are in the promotion of well-being in individuals, organizations, and communities; and in the integration of wellness and fairness. He was recipient of the 2010 "Distinguished Contribution to Theory and Research Award" of the Community Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association (APA), and of the 2014 “Lifetime Achievement Award in Prevention” by the division of Counseling Psychology of APA. In 2019 he also received the Seymour Sarason Award from the Division of Community Psychology.

Joseph P. Gone, PhD

Bio

Joseph P. Gone is an international expert in the psychology and mental health of American Indians and other Indigenous peoples. A professor at Harvard University, Dr. Gone has collaborated with tribal communities for over 25 years to critique conventional mental health services and harness traditional culture and spirituality for advancing Indigenous well-being. He has published over 100 scientific articles and chapters, and received recognition in his fields through several fellowships and career awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2014 and election to the National Academy of Medicine in 2021. An enrolled member of the Aaniiih-Gros Ventre Tribal Nation of Montana, he also served briefly as the Chief Administrative Officer for the Fort Belknap Indian reservation.

Kishan Lara-Cooper, PhD

Bio

Kishan Lara-Cooper (Yurok/Hupa/Karuk) is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Child Development at Humboldt State University where she teaches courses in child development, language development, history, social and cultural considerations, and instructional practices in American Indian education. Dr. Lara-Cooper is also the co-author of K'am-te'm: A Journey toward Healing.

Mneesha Gellman, PhD

Bio

Dr. Gellman is Associate Professor and Director of the Emerson Prison Initiative at Emerson College. Mneesha Gellman's research interests include comparative democratization, cultural resilience, memory and violence politics, and education policy in the Global South and the United States. Gellman's second monograph, Indigenous Language Politics in the Schoolroom: Cultural Survival in Mexico and the United States, looks at how heritage language learning operates in high schools as a tool for young people to resist culturecide—the intentional killing of culture. Gellman is also the founder and Director of the Emerson Prison Initiative (EPI), which makes college available to incarcerated students at Massachusetts Correctional Institution (MCI) at Concord, a men's medium security prison.

Author Tommy Orange

Bio

Tommy Orange is the author of the bestsellingThere There, a multi-generational, relentlessly paced story about a side of America few of us have ever seen: the lives of urban Native Americans. A Pulitzer Prize finalist, There There shows us violence and recovery, hope and loss, identity and power, dislocation and communion, and the beauty and despair woven into the history of a nation and its people. His newest work, Wandering Stars, conjures the ancestors of the family readers first fell in love with in There There,asking what it means to be the children and grandchildren of massacre

This annual conference is hosted by Two Feathers Native American Family Services, the Stanford Center for Youth Mental Health, and the Mental Health Oversight and Accountability Commission. Support for this conference has also been provided by the Indian Health Service.

Questions?

Please contact Judith Dauberman, Ph.D., at jdauberm@stanford.edu