Sly Saint
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM EST
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/long-covid-and-mental-health-a-panel-discussion-tickets-524709629627
About this event
According to CDC surveys, long COVID – defined as symptoms lasting three or more months after first contracting the virus – affects almost one in five people who have had COVID-19 in the US. Symptoms includes fatigue, brain fog, headaches, shortness of breath, and heart palpitations, and the effects can range from manageable to debilitating. Many people living with long COVID also experience overlapping mental health issues, further complicating the process of understanding and coping with confusing and frightening symptoms. Join us to hear from a panel of experienced advocates living with long COVID and other chronic conditions who will speak about the lessons they have learned about building community care networks and accessing long-term medical help. All are contributors to The Long COVID Survival Guide, which aims to establish and share knowledge based on hard-won lived experience.
- 1 hour 30 minutes
- Mobile eTicket
How to Join
This panel discussion is offered through Zoom. You must register with a valid email address.
About Our Panelists
Karla Monterroso is the Founder and Managing Partner of Brava Leaders where she is a coach, strategist, and advisor for several organizations and people doing work impacted by the changing dynamics of the demographic shift. She supports both 1) Their ability to distribute power strategically and contend with bridging the new divide between the social experience and institutional experience of power. 2) Working on the eradication of anti-Blackness in non-Black Latinx people through coaching, culture, and strategy.
Karla has spent two decades focused on growing the people and program functions of rapidly scaling social enterprises driving youth advocacy and leadership. Most recently as the CEO of Code2040 she stewarded the shift from Code2040 as a pipeline organization to an organization committed to dismantling the structural barriers to entry, retention, and promotion of Black and Latinx people in tech. She built the tools and ran the systems that supported the scale of healthcare non-profit, Health Leads. Karla did similar work in college access for low-income communities with national organizations College Summit (now Peer Forward), and College Track. She is currently a board member for Alluma, a tech non-profit enabling the creation of pivotal technology necessary to build a path out of poverty. Karla is an alumnus of the University of Southern California.
Chimére L. Smith is an author, speaker, highly-requested panelist, and thought leader who unapologetically shares her Long Covid journey — including balancing the effects of her disability emotionally, physically, and financially.
She has been featured on CBS, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, PBS, and in The Washington Post, and The New York Times. She has written for Huffington Post, Medium, and She Knows.
Chimére is currently on a virtual book tour, celebrating the release of Fiona Löwenstein’s The Long Covid Survival Guide of which she is a contributing author and can be found at chimereladawn.com. And she also works with #MEAction to encourage diversity in volunteerism.
Morgan Stephens is a journalist who has written for The Daily Beast, CNN Politics and HuffPost. After developing Long Covid in 2020, she wrote intimately about her experience in an essay for CNN Opinion. Since then she's appeared in CNN+, KCAL, ABC Los Angeles, NPR, Poynter, Columbia Journalism Review, Mic and a variety of podcasts on the issue. Her chapter in The Long Covid Survival Guide focuses on mental health. With it, she hopes to destigmatize mental illness from Long Covid and the trauma it inflicts. She's currently writing a memoir and poetry collection about her experience.
Terri Wilder was diagnosed with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) in March 2016. Since her diagnosis she has worked with elected officials, public health departments, health care providers, journalists, and activists to raise awareness about ME/CFS and Long COVID across the globe. Terri is currently a consultant and volunteer with #MEAction, and leads the Minnesota #MEAction chapter. She was instrumental in getting a piece of legislation passed in New York State that provides for a ME/CFS education and outreach program, and represented #MEAction on the federal Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Advisory Committee (CFSAC). She uses the skills she learned from the AIDS movement and the LGBTQ+ community to fight for the ME/CFS and Long COVID community. Terri is a 1992 graduate of the University of Georgia (UGA) School of Social Work where she earned her Master of Social Work. She graduated from UGA with a Bachelor in Social Work in 1989.
About Our Moderator
Yochai Re’em, MD is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist based in New York City. He treats individuals with Long Covid for comorbid psychiatric and psychological conditions, and runs a Long Covid supportive psychotherapy group. Since 2020, he has been a patient-researcher on the team at Patient-Led Research Collaborative for Long Covid. He received his MD from New York University, completed a residency at Weill Cornell Medicine, and is a current psychoanalytic candidate at Columbia University.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/long-covid-and-mental-health-a-panel-discussion-tickets-524709629627
