Episode 92 - Social Media's Impact on Mental Health

My guest on this episode is Rikki Barton who has a passion for communicating essential messages to move individuals and communities onward in their goals. She is the Founder/Lead Consultant of Onward Consulting and holds the Missouri Advanced Prevention Specialist certification as well as international IC&RC certification. Rikki has over 14 years of prevention field experience and currently serves as a consultant to assist organizations, coalitions, and state/federal agencies in the areas of substance use prevention, suicide prevention, and mental health promotion. She has extensive experience working with community coalitions, providing training, grant writing, managing funding sources, and leading a team of preventionists. Rikki trains for CADCA in their youth and adult training programs as well as trains for National Council for Mental Wellbeing as an Adult, Youth, and Teen Mental Health First Aid Instructor. She holds a Bachelors degree from Pennsylvania State University and a Masters degree from Liberty University. In her free time, Rikki loves exploring the outdoors on hikes with her rescue dog, Oreo. Rikki recently returned from an epic adventure trip to Nepal, where she completed the Everest Base Camp trek (unfortunately, without Oreo).

·      Email: rikki@onwardconsulting.biz

·      Web site: https://www.onwardconsulting.biz

·      LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rikki-onward

·      Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/onward_consulting/

·      Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/onwardconsultingllc

The funder of this project, along with all other products of the Mid-America PTTC is the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Although funded by SAMHSA, the content of this recording does not necessarily reflect the views of SAMHSA. The  National Center of Excellence on social media and Youth Mental Health serves as a centralized, trusted source for evidence-based education and technical assistance to support the mental health of children and adolescents as they navigate social media.

https://www.aap.org/en/patient-care/media-and-children/center-of-excellence-on-social-media-and-youth-mental-health/

The internet has dramatically reshaped how we buy and sell everything – including each other. Social media has been used by traffickers to recruit victims, to proliferate their trafficking operations, and to control victims through restricting their social media access, impersonating the victim, or spreading lies and rumors online. A leader in helping us to understand this issue is the Polaris Project, they are a survivor-centered, justice- and equity-driven movement to end human trafficking. 

https://polarisproject.org/human-trafficking-and-social-media/