Social Awareness for Substance Use and Mental Health Disorders
Stop the Judgment.
Start the Conversation.
What We Do
We’re working to dispel the stigma of substance use and mental health disorders.
Mental health disorders and substance use disorders often go hand in hand.
Some young adults self-medicate using substances to cope with emotional or mental health issues. Many who become addicted are too scared or embarrassed to ask for help.
The stigma of being judged traps them in a cycle of shame and substance use that often ends in depression, overdose — and worse.
How We Do It
By creating more societal compassion for young people with substance use and mental health disorders.
- Helping teens understand the stigma and the science of addiction by hosting educational workshops in high schools and middle schools about the stigma and neuroscience of addiction in an effort to generate peer, parent, and faculty understanding and support for young people who are dealing with a substance use disorder and/or a mental health disorder.
- Educating the public on the dangers of substance use – particularly opioids and fentanyl – which have caused skyrocketing numbers of overdoses and poisonings in our area and across the country.
- Creating awareness of the complexity of substance use when combined with mental health disorders, and how these two diseases often are linked.
- Supporting families who are on this lonely journey with a young loved one or have lost a child to substance use.
- Helping to fund projects that make measurable positive changes in the community’s ability to recognize and respond to overdose.
Educational Workshops
Bringing awareness to the stigma and judgment associated with mental health and substance use disorders in adolescents and young adults.
Founder, Stop The Judgment Project
Stop the Judgment Project in the Media
Follow Us on Our Journey as We Fight to End the Stigma
Bill Kress sits down with Sherry Jo Matt, Co-Founder of “Stop the Judgment
Local Family Starts Nonprofit After Losing Daughter to Mental Health Issues, Substance Use Disorder
Franklin Park Couple Help Opioid Awareness Bill Become Law
