Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed our podcast, make sure you follow us @TurningPointCT to stay up to date with what teens and young adults in CT are talking about! You can find us wherever you stream podcasts (ex. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts)!

Don’t forget to like, follow, and subscribe to us on social media!
– Facebook: TurningPointCT
– Instagram: @TurningPoint_CT
– Twitter: @TurningPoint_CT
– YouTube: TurningPointCT.org
– TikTok: @TurningPointCT.org

Want to find more free mental health support services made by and for teens and young adults in Connecticut? Check out our website!

Miss the previous episode? Listen to it HERE!

If you enjoyed our podcast, make sure you follow us @TurningPointCT to stay up to date with what teens and young adults in CT are talking about! You can find us wherever you stream podcasts (ex. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts)!

Don’t forget to like, follow, and subscribe to us on social media!
– Facebook: TurningPointCT
– Instagram: @TurningPoint_CT
– Twitter: @TurningPoint_CT
– YouTube: TurningPointCT.org
– TikTok: @TurningPointCT.org

Want to find more free mental health support services made by and for teens and young adults in Connecticut? Check out our website!

Miss the last episode? Listen to it here!

Here is a quick walkthrough of some of what our website, www.TurningPointCT.org has to offer! Check it out for more specialized mental health resources and information made by and for teens and young adults in Connecticut.

Join Ella, the Turning Point CT Project Coordinator, on her mission to make choices that benefit her mental health! Follow along and share your own story on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube by using the hashtag #TurningPointMoment

If you want to find out more about her mission, visit her blog HERE !

Click HERE to talk about it in the forum !

Join Ella, the Turning Point CT Project Coordinator, on her mission to make choices that benefit her mental health! Follow along and share your own story on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube by using the hashtag #TurningPointMoment

If you want to find out more about her mission, visit her blog HERE !

Click HERE to talk about it in the forum !

This weeks podcast is with Adrianna , Cindy, Emma, and Nahjeera . We had a special guest Woodeline, who is Adrianna’s aunt. Woodline is a 23 year old student at  CUNY Medgar Evers College. She came into talk about her experiences in life and gave her views on the topic of how does your culture shapes you as a person.

Everyone had different ethnicity and different views on current topic questions.

Emma is half Brazilian and Colombian. Adrianna, Woodeline , and Cindy are Haitian American . Nahjeera is African American.

Everyone gave their input about how if you act differently because you need to change your identity or show less of your culture to the world, everyone gave their honest opinion about how they show  themselves to the world.

We hope you enjoy this podcast click here to watch

What is your culture? How do you define your culture? How has it shaped you as a person?

To check out our Summer Interns other podcasts, click here

Hey guys! We are here with the TurningPointCT interns: Adrianna and Nahjeera along with Eliza and Adrianna’s aunt Woodeline!

We left the office for a little while to go across the street to The Norwalk Green and enjoy the sunlight and Summer air.

At the start of every SMART Recovery meeting we all check in with highs and lows- now we are at the Norwalk Green to hang out and check in about our Summer!

How is your Summer going? What is your low and your high of the season and break? Check in with us on this post!

To see more of our interns check out our YouTube page here

and listen to their other videos and podcasts in our media room here

In this podcast we spoke about vaping and smoking. All of us are in high school, some of us just finished our freshman year and Nahjeera is is graduating this year.

Emma, Adrianna and Nahjeera all vape, but Cindy doesn’t and really does not like smoking.

We all talked about why we vape, and when we started. Some of us were in middle school when we started, and others tried it and then stopped for a while.

We spent a lot of time talking about why people vape, including our friends. Vapes come in a ton of flavors, and a lot of us only do it for the taste, or because friends suggested it for stress. Eliza lead us in a conversation about why our friends like to vape, and if we want to stop.

our views on vaping and smoking, why we smoked and why don’t.

Some people smoke because of popularity or  as a coping mechanism. We also talked about how advertising makes people smoke more, and why some of us wouldn’t try certain flavors, like tobacco.

A lot of our friends in high school vape, and we talk about how addictive it is and if we think we are addicted.

We all talked about how we would quit if we ever decided to, and how we could help our friends quit if they asked us for help.

If you have ever vaped and want help, or just want to hear about it from the perspective of a high school, then check out our first summer podcast!

A few months ago, Eliza and Diamond (our SMART group facilitators!) were at one of our high schools, talking about vaping during lunch. To check out what that was like, click here.

In this podcast we talk about coming of age as teenagers and growing up. Also we explain our experiences and stories of coming of age.

Check out TurningPointCT’s newest podcast- our Summer Interns are here! And they are introducing themselves and taking about Coming of Age. What does that mean? What defined coming of age for you? How do you navigate growing up and becoming a teenager or a young adult? Click this link to watch their podcast, or if you would prefer to watch it as a video, check out this link!
Please welcome Adrianna, Cindy, and Nahjeera to the TurningPointCT team and check out their very first podcast and video!

If you want to say hi to us go to our forum here

TurningPointCT.org’s 2019 Awareness Calendar is here!

Every month there are awareness days that celebrate and recognize different things relating to mental health and advocacy. Have you ever wondered when all those awareness days are?

If so, check out ours below! Scroll down to find it!

Download the PDF or save the PNG to your desktop. Print it, share it, and enjoy it! #YouAreNotAlone

So, if you ever have felt like you are the only one experiencing your struggles, you are not alone. These awareness days exist to remind us of that fact. Together, we are strong. Love yourself, spread awareness, and fight stigma.

Make sure you are following us on Facebook and Twitter to see our posts on each awareness day. You can also find out if there are any events happening in honor of the days.

Questions? Ask the forum!

Did we leave out any awareness days that you want us to include? Or, do you have any suggestions? Then let us know in the forum!

You can scroll down for the PDF!

Here is the PDF link:
2019 awareness calendar PDF

And scroll down for the PNG! Hint: you can save these by dragging them to your desktop. If you are on your phone hold down your finger and save the picture!

Here is the entire calendar, month-by-month in PNG form:
January 2019:

February 2019:

March 2019:

April 2019:

May 2019:

June 2019:

July 2019:

August 2019:

September 2019:

October 2019:

November 2019:

December 2019:

If you want to check out last year’s awareness calendar, click here!

We are asking for your help! 

Donate to TurningPointCT.org today or on Giving Day (Thursday, February 28)!

TurningPointCT.org is Connecticut’s peer support community by and for teens and young adults. We’ve got your back!

Our website offers a safe space online to share your story, talk about your problems, get information, and connect with resources. Our staff runs SMART Recovery support groups for teens in Norwalk and Fairfield… with more to come! We connect with other young people at schools and colleges across the state through speaking events, workshops, and resource fairs.  Whatever you’re struggling with–mental illness, addiction, homelessness, bullying, family problems–we’ve been there too.

Help us raise $10,000 to support our small part-time staff of young adults in recovery to be able to keep reaching out to schools, making connections with young people, improving our online support, and running support groups! We want every young person to know that they are not alone.

Donate to TurningPointCT.org today or on February 28th–Fairfield County’s Giving Day.

Click this link to Donate today, and share this page with your friends and family so we can reach our goal.

Giving Day runs from 12:00am to 11:59pm on Thursday, February 28th. Help us to reach our goal of raising $10,000. 

Your donation may even help us get a bonus grant if you’re one of our first or one of our last donors on Giving Day! If we get at least 25 donations of $25 right after midnight when Giving Day starts, we can win an extra $1000. So think of us Wednesday night before you go to bed and just stay up a few minutes past midnight! If you miss that chance, then please donate Thursday night between 9pm and 11:59pm. If we get enough donations during that time period, we may even win a $2,500 bonus!

Whether you can give as much as possible, or you know people who care about mental health who can donate, we need your help. Click the link to give what you can, share this page, and ask your friends to give what they can.

Together we will raise $10,000 to support young people struggling with their mental wellness! 

Click the picture to donate!

(If you want to learn more about Fairfield County’s Giving Day overall, click here.)

Watch Meredith’s inspirational video on life after recovery. In this video, she talks about her experiences and how she believes that “you are not a failure if you feel behind in life due to struggling with a mental illness during your teenage years.” Meredith supports her mental wellness by practicing yoga regularly as well as meditation.

A Quote From Meredith: “Because I struggled with a mental illness during my teenage years, the hardest part of recovery for me was figuring out adulthood. Because I spent so much time in the hospital, I didn’t graduate at the same time as everyone else. It can be so easy to compare your journey to someone else’s. When in reality we are all on our own unique timeline. People don’t realize how much strength recovery takes.”

Join the conversation about this video here

I – You – Me – Us.
We.
Remember what you say this day. And those therein.
Verbatim.

No one knows your strife, who you were in a redacted essence.
Your wits and good guidance be-damned and screwed to the sticking place
Lest we all fall back into a cycle,
Over and over,
Tilting back into that same phase of incriminating definition;

You know your stigmata,
Be it so bright it blinds those who look at you now?

Hear they not our cries and pleas?
Our so-called excuses for restitution of reality that we greedily seek?
Drugs and antidotes and therapies so fruitlessly plundered
From the ministry and hierarchy
Normality, we ask so wantonly;

But to be normal would be to lose who we have become or what we have aimed for,
We are as we have always been so leave us are we are

I – You – Me – Us.
We.
Remember what you say this day. And those therein.
Verbatim.

Submitted by: faljak

SMART Recovery support groups for teens and for young adults and SMART Recovery Family & Friends groups are popping up all throughout Connecticut! Find out which ones are near you and check them out with a friend!

Our TurningPointCT staff are running a SMART Recovery teen group in Fairfield and about to start one in Norwalk. To find a SMART group near you, click here, or to find other cool spots to check out in your area, visit our map here. Join in on the conversation here.

So what exactly is SMART Recovery?

SMART Recovery is a peer support group run by trained facilitators. It is for people seeking support with any struggle they may have: substance abuse, anxiety, depression, bullying, fighting, etc. But it’s more than your average support group–it also helps you develop coping skills by analyzing your behaviors, triggers, reactions, etc.  When our TurningPointCT staff got trained to facilitate SMART groups, they tried the skills out on themselves–and the skills worked! Check out our “What We Like About SMART Recovery” discussion about it on our Videos page.

For more information on SMART Recovery in CT, click here or to find an online meeting visit www.smartrecovery.org

So what exactly is SMART Recovery Family & Friends?

SMART Recovery Family & Friends groups help those who are affected by substance abuse (drug abuse, alcohol abuse) or other addictions of a loved one. If your boyfriend, sister, parent, friend or child is dealing with any type of addiction, this group will not only give you social support from people who have been exactly where you are, but it will also help you develop skills, based on the CRAFT model, to help you handle their behaviors better and also to help you get them into treatment.

For more information on SMART Recovery Family & Friends visit: https://www.smartrecovery.org/family/

September is Recovery Month and Suicide Prevention Month.

Eliza is talking about why she fights for recovery, what her life was like, and how it has changed.

Share your recovery story with us, too and tell us why you fight.

Submit your video here

Watch the video on Vimeo, Youtube, and TurningPointCT.org

Hey TurningPointCT.org! We have recently switched up our system to improve this site. So if you’re wondering where your email notifications are, check your spam folder! Remove us from spam so you can get up-to-date posts and other info. Have questions? Email us at coordinator@turningpointct.org

Join us for the NAMI CT walk this Saturday, May 21st!

We’ll be there alongside a few different young adult organizations. Join our young adult team and walk with us!

Here’s the link to join and/or donate : MIND OVER MATTER

“CT Strong, Turning Point CT, Advocacy Unlimited, Join Rise Be, InterCommunity, Jordan Porco Foundation, Connecticut Legal Rights Project, YAS Biz, Institute of Living and DMHAS Young Adult Services are all key organizations dedicated to advocacy and empowerment of young people with mental health challenges in Connecticut.” We’ll be walking in unison to stop the stigma around mental health, advocate, and of course to educate. Come have some fun!

NAMI Walk in Hartford May 21, 2016 at 9:00am

Bushnell Park
99 Trinity Street
Hartford, CT 06105

Need more info, Check out the official NAMI Connecticut Walk website –> CLICK HERE

Here you can check out any announcements!

Laugh for the Health of It – Meet us at the CCAR Young Adult and Family Center in Bridgeport from 3:30 – 5PM on Friday, MAY 13!

SPACE IS LIMITED PLEASE REGISTER EARLY!!!

Please Call 203-840-1187 or email coordinator@turningpointct.org to RSVP

We’ll be “laughing for the health of it” at yet another young adult meetup, but this time with laugh exercise instructor Laura Le! Since her days as a stressed college student, Laura has explored many different relaxation techniques and laughter has proven to be one of the most powerful stress management tools!

It’s a FREE, FUN hour of: laughter exercise, hanging out, connecting with young adults, and snacks. Flyer HERE.

CCAR Young Adult and Family Program
2nd Floor
853 Fairfield Ave
Bridgeport

Come lower your stress, relax and meet new people (or hang out with people you already know).