Friday, April 30, 2010
Registration 11:00 am
Luncheon and Awards Ceremony Noon
The Beverly Hilton, International Ballroom
9876 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills 90210
On Friday, April 30, 2010
Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services
will hold the 14th annual
Erasing the Stigma Leadership Awards
to help dispel myths and prejudices and honor advocates who have advanced our understanding of mental illness
Alison Malmon
• Alison’s brother took his life while she was an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania. Because she felt stigma had contributed to his despair, she started a campus group dedicated to ending shame and encouraging students to seek help. After graduating, Alison made this endeavor her life work; she founded the non-profit Active Minds, which now has more than 220 college chapters in the U.S.
Ross Szabo
• After discharge from a psychiatric hospital at the age of 16, Ross decided to use his story to dispel his classmates’ prejudice and stereotypes. This step forward culminated in him speaking to over a million high school and college students as a Director of Youth Outreach for the National Mental Health Awareness Campaign. He also authored Behind Happy Faces: What Young Adults Need to Know about Mental Health.
“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”
- Nelson Mandela
Although fifty percent of all mental health disorders emerge by the age of 14 and seventy five percent by age 24, most children and young adults suffer for ten or more years before they get help. Ten years of unnecessary heartache, confusion and shame. Stigma stunts their growth and darkens their dreams. This event brings light and open discussion to tackle stigma and ignorance head on.
Gary E. Knell
• Whether the subject is people coping with fear, loss, lack of hope or dealing with disease or disaster, for 41 years Sesame Workshop has helped families talk and pull together during hard times. Under Gary E. Knell’s leadership, it has developed bilingual multimedia initiatives that use the power of Sesame Street’s characters to help families address every major stressor of the last decade: September 11th, Hurricane Katrina, unemployment, war. An ongoing project since 2006, Talk, Listen, Connect has helped millions of military families cope with the visible and invisible suffering caused by deployments, homecomings and injuries.
Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services
4760 South Sepulveda Boulevard • Culver City, California 90230• P: (310)390-6612• F: (310)398-5690
erasingthestigma@eventsbyone.com • www.didihirsch.org
Mission Statement:
Didi Hirsch transforms lives by providing
quality mental health and substance abuse
services in communities where stigma
or poverty limit access.
George Segal
• George has been a friend of Didi Hirsch since 2002 when he first served as Master of Ceremonies for its Erasing the Stigma Awards.
George kicked of his performing career as a boy magician in his Long Island neighborhood. Before entering Columbia, he was a musician with Bruno Lynch and His Imperial Jazz, where he appeared as Bruno. A renowned banjoist, besides playing here today, he received one of the ultimate cultural accolades for his talent—a reference on The Simpsons.
Ever ahead of his time, George was just in 2012. In the fall, he will appear as Jake Gyllenhaal’s father in Love and Other Drugs. In the meantime, he can be seen on reruns of Just Shoot Me! as Jack Gallo, the loveable head of the fashion magazine Blush.
