Resources | Young Minds Matter: Healing, Justice, and Connection for Mental Wellbeing
The Hogg Foundation held a free virtual event for people who care about children, youth, families, and caregivers. Like previous Young Minds Matter conferences, the focus was on children, transition-age youth and their caregivers, with an added emphasis on engaging historically excluded and underrepresented groups. Learn more about the event.
See below for resources from the conference:
Welcome and Opening Remarks
Welcome by Nzinga Khalid, Vicky Coffee, Dr. Octavio N. Martinez, Jr., Rachel Davis
A New Deal for Youth: Our Vision for Healing and Well-being
Session Speakers:
Dr. Nia West-Bey, Darlecia Dublin, Whitney Lee, Kadesha Mitchell, Marissa Howdershelt
Supporting School Systems to Make the Shift to Stop Being the Nexus into the Prison Pipeline
Session Speakers:
Kristi Rangel, Marcus Ceniceros, Jamie Freeny, Regenia Hicks
Street Captains: A Model for Community Engagement and Advocacy
Session Speakers:
Sindhu Sathees, Regina Garza, Susan Jackson, Georgette Bryant, Maria Rodriguez, Gloria Mazariego, Pat Jasso, Sylvia Reyes
Juneteenth Legacy Project: Art in Action
Session Speakers:
Torrina Harris, Jon Warren, Sam Collins, Sue Johnson, Toby Agnew
Building Bridges for Health Equity and Racial Justice
Session Speakers:
La’Quana Williams
Minds Forgotten: A Muslim Mental Health Story
Session Speakers:
Qudisah Muhammad
Intergenerational Learning & Collaboration: The Impact of Storytelling for Justice and Healing
Session Speakers:
Walter Hull, Aniya Wingate, Gretchen Batiste
The Use of Film and Arts in Healing and Justice
Session Speakers:
Xach Blunt, Qudisah Muhammad, Walter Hull, Aniya Wingate
Socially Connected Communities: Equity Solutions to Social Inclusion
Session Speakers:
Ruben Cantu
Babies on Baytown: Supporting Infant Mental Health and Family Well-being
Session Speakers:
Christy Serrano, Laura Alvarado, Maria Faz-Perez
Rooted in Racial Justice: Growing Green Spaces for Healthy and Healing
Communities
Session Speakers:
Shabana Ali, Xavier Lofton
Storying Community Trauma into Resiliency: An Indigenous Framework
Session Speakers:
Jeffrey Miguel Acido
Relational Advocacy: Using Relationships to Dismantle School to Prison Pipeline
Session Speakers:
Anthony Sonnier, Toby Agnew, Brandon Williams, Bacillio Valdez
Kindergarten Readiness and Black Youth on Galveston Island
Session Speakers:
Semira Solomon, Shanice Blair, Jon Warren, Cindy Roberts-Gray
Eastern Parents and Western Children
Session Speakers:
Furjen Deng, Haitrieu Nguyen, Sharon Cheng, Ryan Nguyen, Carol Li
Youth Voices for Change Summit
Speaker Bios
| Nia West-Bey is director of youth policy at The Center for Law and Social Policy. She leads a team that seeks to advance a vision for policy and systems change co-created with youth and young adults, ages 16-25, that centers safety, healing and well-being, and economic and racial justice. She has expertise in youth development, qualitative and quantitative data interpretation and analysis, and the intersection of psychology, social policy, and program evaluation.
Kadesha Mitchell has worked as a Young Adult Peer Support Specialist with The Cove Walden which is an adolescent clubhouse in a rural area. She primarily works with you ages 11 to 17 years old that are impacted by personal or familial mental health challenges or substance use disorders. She is a student at Liberty University where she has completed an Associates in Psychology and Christian Counseling, she plans to complete her Bachelors majoring in Social Work in December 2021. Marissa Howdershelt is a queer nonbinary healer. Marissa recently graduated college from UC Riverside with a bachelor’s degree in Public Policy and a minor in education. Marissa is passionate about holding intentional spaces for radical self love & growth. |
| Marcus Ceniceros is the senior director of regional impact at Leadership for Educational Equity. Based in Houston, he supports current and former educators to build individual and collective skills so they can advocate for their students, organize their communities, gain access to leaders that create education policy, and become public leaders themselves. Marcus has been a classroom teacher, grade level lead, and building administrator in Houston, New Orleans, and Chicago. He is the leadership development coach of ONE Houston and a co-leader of the Citywide Effort to Address Implicit Bias through School Discipline Reform.
Kristi Rangel serves as the educational lead for the City of Houston’s My Brother’s Keeper (MBK) Initiative. In her role she is directly responsible for working with educational leaders and organizations, as well as the sectors that interact with them, to create better outcomes for young people in Houston’s most vulnerable communities. Ms. Rangel has developed and led a lengthy list of programs, during her career as an educational and public health leader. She has been awarded numerous awards for her work, as classroom teacher, curriculum design specialist, school leader and mental health advocate. Named a 2018 Children’s Mental Health Champion by Mental Health America of Greater Houston, she is also a former Harvard Kennedy School Mayoral Leadership in Education Fellow. Regenia A. Hicks Ph.D. has a 40 year history of developing and managing behavioral health programs for children, youth and adults at the community, state and federal level. Since 2013 Dr. Hicks has worked in the adult and juvenile justice systems. For five years she directed the Harris County Mental Health Jail Diversion Program for adults with behavioral health issues cycling through the Harris County jail. She is currently the coordinator for special programs with the Harris County Juvenile Probation Department focusing on equity and behavioral health policy and service expansion. |
| Sindhu Sathees is a public health professional from SugarLand/Houston, TX and works for AccessHealth Community Health Center in the Population Health Department. As part of the Communities of Care Initiative, she coordinates the Reaching Richmond Community Collaborative to help improve factors of mental health and well-being in the Richmond, Texas area. She is currently pursuing her Masters of Public Health at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston and enjoys teaching dance and spending time in nature during her free time.
Regina Garza, LMSW, is a proud graduate of the Graduate College of Social work from the University of Houston. She is passionately serving the students and families of T. L. Pink Elementary to ensure their well-being and academic growth. Mrs. Garza especially enjoys developing and implementing parent and student initiatives to enrich their lives. She has worked with the pregnant and parenting teens with Lamar CISD as the Parent Educator and non-profit Fort Bend Partnership for Youth as the Director of Programs. |
| Mother and advocate, Torrina Harris is a Galveston resident and serves as the Program Director for Nia Cultural Center promoting education advocacy, cultural competency, and engaging Black families to support the health and well-being of children and youth. She’s done work addressing social determinants of health, and has a background in offender education, teaching Anger Management and Drug and Alcohol Awareness through Freedom Education Center to populations from the TDCJ Reentry & Integration Division as well as individuals on parole and probation. Torrina currently serves as the Poet in Residence at Galveston Central Church and on the board of Vision Galveston.
Jonathan Warren is a former attorney and school liaison and is a Communities of Care Co-Coordinator for The Future is US. He is passionate about achieving equality and equity for underrepresented students. Through work with collaborative partners, he hopes to change and implement policies and practices that will reduce classroom inequities, specifically school disciplinary issues. |
| La’Quana Williams, MPH, is a program manager at Prevention Institute’s (PI) Los Angeles office whose work focuses on the intersection of health equity and racial justice. Much of her work supports local health departments and other federal agencies in their learning and implementation of applying a racial justice lens to their violence prevention both locally and nationally. She serves as an adjunct lecturer at California State University, Monterey Bay, where she teaches several public health and social justice courses, and received her master’s of Public Health with an emphasis in Urban Health Disparities from Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. La’Quana is the proud mother of two amazing boys and resides in her hometown of Inglewood, California. |
| Qudisah Miftah Muhammad is a graduating senior from the Elevated Places, valedictorian, and a graduate from Houston Community College with her Associates Degree as Magna Cum Laude. Before finishing high school, she was accepted as a junior to the University of Houston where she completed her first semester as a full time student with all “A”s. With her passion for mental health, specifically within the Black and Muslim community, she produced the Minds Forgotten Documentary. |
| Walter J. Hull II is a Thought Leader, Social Artist, and Youth Development Strategist in Houston, TX where he serves as Executive Director of Urban Souls Dance Company. Through his work with the U.S. Dream Academy, a national organization dedicated to improving neighborhoods harmed by incarceration, he has helped shape the organization’s approach to community asset building through mentoring. As an artist, his choreography has deep roots in healing and justice through the storytelling of the black experience in America that he refers to as his Village Responsibility.
Aniya Wingate and Walter J. Hull II are not just Mentor and Protege but intergenerational storytellers and collaborators that utilize their art as a vehicle towards justice and healing in the Black community. Together, they created a short film, Shoulders Deep about healing after Hurricane Harvey and a feature documentary, Raising Aniya, about their relationship and exposing environmental justice issues in the Gulf Coast region of Louisiana and Texas. Gretchen Batiste is a mother of three daughters and a grandmother of one boy and six girls. She has worked with at-risk kids elementary to high school, at alternative schools and group homes for 20 years. Gretchen is an ordained minister and a certified life coach. As leader of an Outreach Ministry, she volunteer in prisons and group homes the youth. Gretchen is currently furthering her education in counseling. |
| Xach Blunt is a spoken word artist, writer, and lifetime learner that holds authenticity as his highest standard. Using generosity, empathy, compassion, gratitude, and love as artistic tools applied to narrative canvas. Xach’s work is dynamic described as a breath of fresh air that fills the spirits of those who don’t feel as deeply as they once did. https://www.xachblunt.com |
| Ruben Cantu is an Associate Program Director on Prevention Institute’s Safety and Wellbeing Team. He has more than 20 years of nonprofit experience in public health and mental health and wellbeing through an equity and racial justice lens. At PI, he leads initiatives to address and prevent community trauma through application of PI’s Adverse Community Experiences and Resilience framework. He also works on strategies to improve mental health and wellbeing through a focus on community conditions. Ruben is the author of California’s strategic plan for reducing mental health disparities and serves on several state advisory committees. |
| Christy Serrano is the Regional Director of First3Years in Houston, TX. Before joining First3Years, Christy worked in child abuse prevention programming, early childhood policy, and education philanthropy. Christy also has experience working with teens with disabilities in developing job readiness skills. She holds a Master of Public Policy from the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. Christy grew up in Fort Bend County, Texas and now lives in Harris County with her husband Matt, baby Stella, and three adorable pets.
Maria Faz-Perez describes herself as a christian, a person of faith. She feels blessed to be the mother of a young man on the autism spectrum and a teacher in the public school setting for 22 years. Working with children, youth and families is her calling. She is a Co-Chair for Babies in Baytown focusing on providing early education and mental health interventions for children and their families. Laura Alvarado is the Community Systems Manager of First3Years where she has developed an integrated and coordinated community system within Baytown, TX where every family has an equitable voice, is supported, and can readily access and choose from quality resources and services for their young child. Laura is a graduate of Lee College in Baytown, TX with an associate’s degree in business administration. As part of her mission of continuing to give back to her community, Laura currently serves as a City of Baytown Councilmember & Mayor Pro Tem, where she serves as the Secretary for the Municipal Development District and Vice President of the Architecture & Engineering Committee. |
| Shabana Ali is a Program Assistant supporting Prevention Institutes Safety and Wellbeing team on projects related to mental health, wellbeing, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to joining Prevention Institute, she worked as an undergraduate student researcher for two years at CSU East Bay, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in Health Sciences with a concentration in Public Health. Her research focuses on addressing health disparities and promoting preventative methods through community-based participatory research among Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. Shabana is committed to eliminating health disparities to empower at-risk communities to pursue optimal health and achieve a greater quality of life.
Xavier Lofton, MPH works on Prevention Institute’s Safety and Wellbeing team as a Program Coordinator. His community-driven approach to health equity work is rooted in principles of racial justice and social justice. Prior to joining PI, Xavier served multiple roles within the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. His work within chronic disease and violence prevention is guided by asset-based community framing. Xavier was a 2018 Health Equity Awakened fellow with Human Impact Partners, which further grounded his systems-based approach to addressing health inequities. Xavier received his Master of Public Health degree from Drexel University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Public Relations with a minor in Sociology from Hofstra University. |
| Dr. JT Miguel Acido is a 1.5 Generation Ilokano passionate in developing pedagogies of liberation and engaging the next generation of community educators and leaders in healthy and healing community practices. Jeffrey is proud of his working class roots, his mother a maid in a hotel and his father a retired janitor. He earned a PhD in Education and a Masters in Theology that focuses on Liberation Theology. He dreams of the possibility of Hawaii one day becoming de-occupied and the Ilocos becoming a sovereign nation. |
| Soulliaa Rae is a mobile Healing Artist based in Houston, TX. She cultivates restorative programming, events, workshops and facilitations utilizing expressive arts interventions and disaster recovery frameworks. Centering the wellness and recovery of brown and black folx is the basis of her life’s work and she believes that wholeness is for now and the key to dismantling systemic oppression and white supremacy. |
| Brandon Williams is the Program Director for Galveston Urban Ministries, and works to empower at-risk students in Galveston, from kindergarten to college, through after-school programs, community service, youth employment, college preparation and in-school mentoring. Brandon has over a decade of experience embarrassing himself trying to dance with his students, being a shoulder to cry on in the midst of tragedy, and cheering alongside parents at his students graduations. Brandon is a recipient of the Galveston County 40 under 40 for 2021 though his greatest joy is being a husband to his amazing wife TJ and father to their two beautiful girls Everby and Revelrie. |
| Shanice Blair is a recent Masters graduate in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Walden University and is a Co-Coordinator for The Future is US. She leads grant management, collaboration and partnerships, and community engagement on various projects such as the “Equity and Access for All” project with Causeway Galveston and Galveston Independent School District. Shanice’s previous work with Galveston community members as a case manager has given her insight into what barriers and resources there are in the community.
Jonathan Warren is a former attorney and school liaison and is a Communities of Care Co-Coordinator for The Future is US. He is passionate about achieving equality and equity for underrepresented students. Through work with collaborative partners, he hopes to change and implement policies and practices that will reduce classroom inequities, specifically school disciplinary issues. |
| Sharon Cheng has over 19 years of experience as a Therapeutic Consultant/ Behavior Specialist, Positive Behavior Support Professional, Service Coordinator and Special Needs Program coordinator. She is currently the Director of the Special Needs Caring Center for Light and Salt Association in Houston, TX. She brings tremendous experience and skills around educational and adaptive living strategies, program development, client support services, and coalition building.
Haitrieu Nguyen is the founder of TÂM: Talk and Mend. TÂM is a grass-roots movement to talk and mend the stigma surrounding mental health in Vietnamese-American culture. Ryan Nguyen is currently a college sophomore at the University of Houston studying mathematics. He has volunteered for countless hours helping to teach Vietnamese at his local Church, joining Boy Scouts of America and earning his Eagle Scout Rank, and recently joining the Army National Guard (age 18). As an intern with Light and Salt, he helps promote health in the Asian community. Carol Li is a parent advisor at AYLUS Pearland (Alliance of Youth Leaders in the United States, Pearland branch), a nation-wide non-profit youth leadership organization founded in 2015. Most of its members are 2nd generation Asian American. During COVID-19 pandemic, AYLUS Pearland organized many volunteering community service events to support the local communities. Carol immigrated to the US from China in 1992. She earned her PHD and MBA from University of Houston. She is a mother of three children. Dr. Furjen Deng, PhD is a Professor of the Department of Sociology at Sam Houston State University. She received her PhD in Sociology from Purdue University. Her current research interests include: cancer disparities in Asian-American community, quality of life among cancer survivors, social impact assessment, and program evaluation. Working closely with community-based organizations, she has written more than 20 grant proposals, many that have helped build the capacities of Asian American community-based organizations in Texas. |