Welcome to The Newsfeed.

I'm Paris Jackson.

We're here today outside of Lumen Field, where mental health and wellness was front and center in July.

A Washington psychotherapist noticed a need for a BIPOC centered wellness conference after years of attending less inclusive ones.

We'll take you inside the Reclaiming Wellness Conference and learn how it's a movement toward liberation and healing.

I know that my ancestors remember this... and they found a way and I'm gonna find a way.

In a full room of clinicians, educators, and advocates, Dr. Jennifer Mullan leads an interactive exercise at the Reclaiming Wellness Conference in Seattle.

I wanted to create a space for us, a space where we could come and be intentional about our healing and our wellness and really reclaim wellness, which is why I titled that because wellness is all of our birthright.

But from centuries, it's been stolen from us and colonized, and it's been made to look a different way.

Psychotherapist and founder of the Therapy Fund Foundation, Ashley McGirt-Adair, has been on a mission to break down barriers to mental health and destigmatize it in black and brown communities.

Her conference is now in its third year, and this year at Lumen Field.

She says the event is for all people, including those who aren't licensed but who work with people of color, and it offers the opportunity to be trained by BIPOC clinicians.

Because I think it's so important that we acknowledge that healing comes in all forms.

You don't have to have a letter behind your name.

I always give it up to the barbers, the stylists, the big mamas, the pastors, the artists, all of those other creatives that create spaces for healing and I incorporate that into our Reclaiming Wellness Conference.

Throughout the day, there are more than a dozen workshops.

Not knowing, what our youth has actually endured.

Right.

So making sure we are using our diversity, equity, inclusion lens as well.

Mental health therapist Toni Williams leads one entitled Bridging the Gap, Culturally Responsive Mental Health Strategies for Today's Youth.

A lot of our youth don't have the same resources.

And making sure that we are getting to a space to where we are not only letting them know what resources are out there, but how these resources can be, a huge piece in productivity and helping them be successful out in the real world.

Williams says part of her talk focused on the tools people need when working with students grades K through 12 and within the therapeutic space.

Leila Woolsey, who works in social services in health care, is a first time attendee.

I love not only the focus on the BIPOC community, but I also love the focus on the integration of mind and body.

It's not just about talk therapy and sort of standard conventional old practices.

Williams says the mental health needs for young people are on the rise and vary culturally.

I'm seeing a huge influx of youth needing clinical support when it comes to therapeutic counseling, but the therapy fund has been huge and instrumental in linking those youth to those resources.

McGirt-Adair hopes attendees lean into the exploration of culturally rooted practices, challenging colonial frameworks in mental health and reimagining wellness for BIPOC communities.

We make it accessible so that everyone can take away something and then bring it back into their community, so it's not just pouring into one person.

It's pouring into a collective.

And when we heal ourselves, we heal a generation.

The Therapy Fund Foundation also offers a free therapy fund for Washington residents year round.

You can find that application on their website, TherapyFundFoundation.org.

I'm Paris Jackson.

Thank you for watching The Newsfeed, your destination for nonprofit Northwest news.

Go to CascadePBS.org for more great local coverage.