001[Music] [Applause] [Music] good [Music] job my name is Kristen French I am the director of the prevention and Human Services Department here in Ashland when you start talking about mental health and really acknowledge how important it is just as important as our physical health just as important as our social health I think it makes people feel a little bit more comfortable um and then that really allows us to really come together and really start talking about it um within our families within our schools and within our communities um and actually through the throughout the course of the Year through the department we'll actually put on a lot of different types of programs programs for youth programs for parents and caregivers as well as uh programs for community members on a wide range topics from substance
002use prevention all the way through mental health and um and physical health so we will continue to put on more programs my name is Eliza DOD I am the youth and Community coordinator for the Department of prevention and Human Services in Ashland I also run the decisions at every return Coalition and this is Art saves Ashland uh it is our inaugural event where we are recognizing mental health awareness month and life-saving power of the Arts um so we are here we have a great turnout today lots of activities and just very happy for ashin to turn up to now art saves Ashland and we're just really happy to be spreading the word about the Arts about mental health awareness and just the important sentiments that go along with that yeah events like art saves Ashland
003are just absolutely essential for our community um we have been far apart for many years now uh especially since the covid pandemic we've just not had opportunities to collaborate like this and so by showing up um it shows that you care that you want to collaborate that you want to move forward and hosting that all around the idea of mental health awareness has just been a really positive experience if you are wanting to get involved in events like these uh you can log on to Ashland decisions. org we have a volunteer page um you can also reach out to the our ashin department of prevention Human Services uh we are in the process of defining ourselves previously we were just the human services department now we have added prevention into the mix um wanting to
004talk to people more about what's important to them what problems do we see that we want to prevent and so just reaching out to us there's a wonderful staff at the community center I work at the high school and we would really love for people to collaborate with us