Boca Raton’s Promise (BRP), a nonprofit dedicated to awareness and education for mental health issues, will host mental health advocate Hakeem Rahim, Ed.M., M.A. (above) at the Boca Regional Hospital tomorrow night (Friday, January 22) for a talk on mental health. Rahim arrives in Boca one day after his testimony as part of an expert panel before the U.S. Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee for “Improving the Federal Response to Challenges in Mental Health Care in America” hearing.
The stats of mental illness in America are in themselves shocking: 1 in 4 adults have mental illness—it outnumbers cancer and heart attacks combined; half of all mental illness begins by age 14. In a 2011 survey in Palm Beach County, 22 percent of middle school students reported considering suicide.
Rahim’ talk is entitled “Let’s Talk Mental Illness”™ and will share his own personal story as someone with a long history of bipolar disorder—and how he has coped. The talk, which is free and open to the public, is from 7:30 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. in the Dawson Theater at Boca Regional Hospital.
