It is estimated that nearly 7% of the adult population in the US will at some point in their life suffer from depression. It is a rare family that has not been touched by the pain of depression, which might include drug/alcohol abuse, job-loss, divorce, infidelity, suicide, emotional and physical harm, and a host of other difficult and hard to talk about subjects that harm the integrity of a family.
Despite an increasing number of conversations about depression in the public sphere, many families continue to fight this battle in silence and alienated from their loved ones.
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About the Presenter: Mark Meier, MSW, LCSW
Mark is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over with over 25 years of clinical, professional, and academic training on depression, to go along with a deeply personal understanding of the impact depression has on families and workplaces when left unrecognized and untreated. In 2009 Mark co-founded the Face It Foundation to provide free support services to men who deal with depression and who have survived suicide attempts.
Today Face It serves over 100 men each month with support groups, retreats, education classes, and social activities. In addition to his full-time work at Face It, Mark is on staff in the University of Minnesota’s School of Medicine – Department of Family Medicine and Community Health and an advisor for multiple research studies on depression through the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Mark has delivered over 350 talks across the United States on depression and he openly speaks about his own battle with depression that resulted in his hospitalization in 2002.
Mark believes it’s his own experience with depression that has best positioned him to help others.