Community Conversations: Troubled Times for Teens

Being a teen has never been easy. But something is clearly wrong when we are seeing so many teens resorting to taking their own lives. What are the factors contributing to this, and how can our community provide better support and intervention, and also – how can we create a culture where teens feel better nourished, and are less likely to fall into despair?

Presenters:

Len Fleischer, Ed.D, is a Professor of Education at Keene State College, a licensed clinical psychologist, and a rite-of-passage guide with the Animas Valley Institute. His professional focus is on adolescence and young adulthood. Dr. Fleischer has a doctoral degree from Harvard University.

With her husband Raino, Karen Wirein co-founded the Monadnock Region Chapter of The Compassionate Friends in 1982. For over 30 years, this chapter offered bereaved parents, grandparents, and siblings comfort and support following the death of a daughter, son, brother, sister, or grandchild.

Shayna Appel is  currently serving as Interim Parish Minister at the Peterborough Unitarian Universalist Church, as Chaplain for the Peterborough Fire Department, Townsend (MA) Fire Department and the MA CORPS of Fire Chaplains. She is also a founding member of the Unitarian Universalist Trauma Response Ministry Team.

Kim Varney Chandler has been the school  counseling director at Conval High School since 2012. She has a B.S. in Business Administration and an M.A. in Counseling, both from the University of New Hampshire. She has twenty years experience as a school counselor; nine of those as a director. She was selected as the Virginia School Counseling Supervisor of the Year in 2010. She serves on the boards of Monadnock at Home and the Peterborough Rotary Club, and is a trained RENEW facilitator. Kim is a member of the both the Monadnock Community Hospital Be The Change Task Force and the ConVal Substance Abuse Task Force.

Community Conversations is a series that explores many of the issues impacting our communities. A partnership between the Monadnock Center for History and Culture and the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, each Conversation features local experts talking about challenges faced by our communities. Some issues are global in nature, but each conversation is designed to examine the topic from a local perspective. The program provides residents with the opportunity to learn more about key issues impacting their communities, to engage in a civil dialog with speakers and with each other, and to come away with a sense that there are things that individuals and communities can do to foster change and improvement. 

Community Conversations are held in Bass Hall at the Monadnock Center for History and Culture, 19 Grove St., in Peterborough.  The program is free and open to all.