#MUStrong: VIA offers aid in dealing with trauma

Manchester University is a special place where students, faculty and staff draw together and support each other. That strong community has been especially evident these last few months, after one student died over Christmas break and then three more died in February.

There have been memorials, choral tributes, counseling, kind words and kind actions. Still, we may not all understand how experiences of trauma continue to affect us as individuals and our close-knit community.

We can better support each other if we have tools that can enable us to address our own mental health, and help each other to recognize and cope with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

#MUStrong: Responding to Trauma as Individuals and as a Community is a Values, Ideas and the Arts presentation designed by faculty members to provide both a vocabulary and a conceptual framework to do just that.

Presenters Marcie Coulter-Kern, Rusty Coulter-Kern, David Johnson and Katy Gray Brown will provide a concise overview of aspects of PTSD, so that participants can understand what the causes, risk factors and symptoms might be; what form or variations that might take; available treatments; about coping and support; and other related information. 

The program is 7 p.m. Thursday, April 14, in the Jo Young Switzer Center, upper level.

Counseling Services Director Danette Norman Till with will provide materials at a table after the event.

Manchester University, with campuses in North Manchester and Fort Wayne, is one of six colleges across the nation grounded in the values and traditions of the Church of the Brethren. The University offers more than 60 areas of academic study to 1,500 students in undergraduate programs, a Master of Science in Pharmacogenomics, Master of Athletic Training and a four-year professional Doctor of Pharmacy.  Learn more about the private, northern Indiana school at www.manchester.edu.

April 2016