Self-Harm Awareness Workshop Friday June 14th
The Cove/D.F.Z. Youth Recovery and Wellness Center is offering a free awareness workshop on the wellness issue of self-harm on Friday, June 14th from 5-6:30 p.m. at the Southern Maryland Higher Education Center, Room 123.
Self harm, also called self-injury, is often further separated into suicidal self-injury and non-suicidal self-injury. The June 14th workshop will focus on non-suicidal self-injury. Non-suicidal self injury is most common among young people, with one study (Ross and Health, 2002) indicating that 14% of surveyed high school students had engaged in self-injury. While it is commonly thought that self-injury is a girls’ issue, the experience of self-injury is equally divided among both genders. Forms of self-injury include but are not limited to cutting, burning, picking a wound to interfere with healing, infecting oneself, inserting objects in one’s skin, bruising or breaking bones, hair pulling and punching/hitting oneself or other things.
Participants at the awareness workshop will have the opportunity to learn more about self-harm by watching and discussing segments of the documentary “CUT: Teens and Self Injury.” The film explores the issues of self-harm through the experiences and honest stories of teens and counselors. It was produced in partnership with Briarpatch: Youth Services of Southern Wisconsin and is distributed by SAFE Alternatives in Chicago. Awareness workshop participants will also gain information about possible signs of self-harm and on resources and local support to help in safely addressing self-harm.
The awareness workshop is intended for parents, educators, youth workers, youth leaders in the faith community, and social service workers. It is not intended or recommended for individuals who actively self-harm to personally attend this workshop as some of the material may be triggering to those who engage in self-harm.
For more information about attending the workshop, please contact Megan Love at 301-997-1300 x 865. Click to read Walden’s informational blog post on self-injury. The Cove/D.F.Z. is a program of Walden Sierra that is free and open to youth ages 12-17 that have concerns about drugs or alcohol. For hours, activities and other information, please contact us at 301-997-1300 x 865 or 804, go to www.waldensierra.org or friend us on Facebook at Cove Walden.
