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BEADing the Stigma event held to improve youth mental health

January 21, 2020

For Immediate Release

Jan 20, 2020

BEADing the Stigma event held to improve youth mental health

Departments work together to bring healthy, cultural activities

OKMULGEE, Oklahoma — There are several different ways to help improve your mental health. Things such as exercise, surrounding yourself with good people, walking, yoga and beading.

“Yes, beading has helped out with my mental health and at times when I dealt with anxiety,” Mvskoke Nation Youth Services (MNYS) Youth Mentor Jasmine Buckley said. “This project is very close to me.”

Mental health issues can come from all types of conditions. Different things can affect people’s mood, thinking and behavior. Like it or not, stress can affect our lives everyday.

Muscogee (Creek) Nation Behavioral Health Services through the Methamphetamine and Suicide Prevention Initiative (MSPI) grant and MNYS began a partnership and wanted to incorporate something new to help with mental health issues.

‘BEADing the Stigma’ was held for the youth at the Oklahoma State University Prevention Program Office in Okmulgee on Jan. 14.

MSPI Project Director Rush Williams has been looking forward to this activity and knows it will help raise awareness for mental health.

“We want to reduce any type of stigma there is for mental health treatment,” he said. “This is another healthy activity that our youth can do.”

Williams said when preparing for this event MCNBH and MNYS have a desire to be as culturally diverse as possible.

“We wanted to find something that could tie our culture with self-care and make it into a healthy activity,” Williams said. “We felt beading could do something and be very rewarding for our participants.”

Several youth were at the event ready to participate and learn how to deal with things stress related and improve their mental health.

Buckley says beading has always been a part of her life and she wanted to share it with others.

“Beading for me has been an outlet and it is a connection with my culture,” she said. “It helps me to deal with stress and get the worries of everything away from me.”

Both and Williams and Buckley said they hope to hold more ‘BEADing the Stigma’ events in the future.

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