Mental health is an issue that the open source & software dev communities are, thankfully, starting to talk about. We need to talk about it more.

Roughly 1 in 5 people will deal with a diagnosable mental illness in their lifetime. Despite this, there's still a huge amount of stigma around disclosing mental health problems and seeking treatment for them. This stigma actively discourages people from getting the help they need to put their lives back on track.

The more we drag this issue out into the open, the less of a bugbear it will continue to be.

No crazy required to attend -- folks who are interested in talking about the large-scale issue of mental health in tech are welcome, along with anybody who wants to share their own experiences.

If you're interested, you can sign up below, or email Rick Scott (‎shadowspar‎) privately: <rick@shadowspar.dyndns.org>. You're welcome to suggest a time and venue that works for you as well.

Interested:
* Rick Scott (‎shadowspar‎)
* Joe Axford (‎j0e‎)
* jack lupton (‎itnomad‎)
* David H. Adler (‎dha‎)

Scheduling: Monday (Dinner BoF) night seems to be the preferred option at the moment, but not strongly so. Thus, I (Rick Scott (‎shadowspar‎)) propose Monday night at Asters Ethiopian, but I'm totally open to a different time & venue! Thoughts?

Too, I know a lot of people are signed up for Movie Night on Monday. I'm happy to run two different gatherings if that's what we need to do to include everyone who wants to attend.

Return/go to list of suggested BOFs


version 7 saved on 03/06/13 05:27 by Rick Scott (‎shadowspar‎)

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