Running Thursday, Sept. 4 through Sunday Sept. 7 the conference takes place on the HSU campus and is targeted at students and professionals in the helping fields, including addiction counselors, nurses, doctors, educators. The event is open to the public and registration is required. More information and a full schedule are available online.
“Sometimes we can feel overwhelmed as a community and this is a good time to come together to see how we can support each other and how we can heal and see where we’re coming from,” says Holly Scaglione, a lecturer in the Dept. of Social Work and one of the conference organizers.
Students from a range of majors are volunteering with the conference along with College of the Redwoods students enrolled in the college’s Addiction Studies program.
Among the presenters is best-selling author Dr. Gabor Mate, a physician who specializes in the study and treatment of addiction. His writings and research have propelled Mate to wide acclaim for his perspective on attention deficit disorder and his firmly held belief in the connection between mind and body health.
Dr. Mate presents two sessions of his talk, “When the Body Says No” & “Taming the Hungry Ghost” on Saturday. A keynote address, also on Saturday, will be delivered by Brent Potter, Ph.D., the author of “Elements of Self Destruction,” which delves into reasons why humans are driven to self-destructive behavior despite self-preservation instincts.
Charles Garfield Ph.D., founder of the Shanti Project and founding faculty member of the Metta Institute, presents the opening keynote address on Thursday. Friday begins with a morning keynote from HSU Professor Michael Yellowbird, who recently co-authored “Decolonizing Trauma & Addiction: Narratives from Arikara Survivor Prophecies.” The 354-page text examines the myriad colonizing influences inherent in contemporary, mainstream Western social work education, practice, and theories, and ways in which social workers can decolonize their profession, weakening the effects of colonialism and better serving their local and global communities.