The escalating cases of mental illness, suicide, and accidental overdoses of teens and young adults in the U.S. over the last decade calls for immediate action. Our passion at the Warren Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery (WCNDD) is to educate the young on how to build healthy brains and self-compassionate minds as a means of substance use, substance use disorder, and mental illness prevention.
Speaking Through Me Trailer
The Warren Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery at Vanderbilt has developed a community outreach program led by the Director of Outreach and Advocacy Programs, Dr. Kristen Gilliland. This outreach program is fueled by the loss of Kristen’s 22-year old son, Anders, to an accidental drug overdose in 2019. Anders suffered from schizophrenia most likely brought on by ingesting high potency cannabis in his early teens. He later became addicted to heroin and cocaine after his mental illness became more difficult to manage. Kristen and the Warren Center have a sincere passion for reaching the young to prevent this heartbreaking tragedy from happening to other families.
Check out a preview of our “Just the Facts” game in action!
We had some outstanding high schools students from the Westminster Wildcats in Atlanta, GA stop by our center to learn about the effects of cannabis on the adolescent brain and play our “Just the Facts” game!
“Just the Facts” is an interactive game that teaches youth science-based facts about the effects of substance use on the developing adolescent brain. The game is designed for middle school-aged children using a Jeopardy/Family Feud style format. The students are given the “Just the Facts” fact sheet to quiz each other prior to game time! Then it’s a face off to see who can buzz in the fastest with the correct answer.
“We are all here for some special reason. Stop being a prisoner of your past. Become the architect of your future.”
— Robin Sharma
If you’re struggling, talk about it.
Go to a random person in your life that you can trust and tell them you’re struggling! Once you talk about it, it loses its power – every single day it loses its power.
Try to give yourself a little pat on the back
Everyone nowadays is looking for hope……hope is really cultivated in the moments you have with yourself. When you are able to look in the mirror and say, “I was proud about something”, that’s a big step!
It shouldn’t matter what other people think
I thought that if I wasn’t perfect, that everything would fall apart around me…and that’s not true! You can make mistakes, and you can be whoever you want to be.
Upcoming events.
Keep up with what we’re doing through our interactive calendar/events page!
“At any given moment, you have the power to say: this is not how the story is going to end.”
- Christine Mason Miller