Suicide Prevention / Trauma Recovery Summit

Saturday March 4, 2023 1pm-5pm
“Third Freedom” Suicide Prevention and Trauma Recovery Summit will be held in the chapel of Kroc Community Center
1250 W. 119th St., Chicago, IL

Organized by the Chicago Urban Fine Arts Commonwealth NFP, mental health professionals and urban music entertainers will rep freedom of mental and emotional wellness among the Four Freedoms of the urban fine arts.

The summit is a grassroots community outreach extension of CUCAC’s “Life Is A Gift” wellness campaign that in large part will examine how toxic dynamics have a bearing on anxiety, depression, suicide and post-suicide trauma.The keynote presenter/panelist will be world renowned Pittsburgh-based therapist, trauma recovery coach, educator, author and YouTube personality Tamara Hill. Hill has just published a new handbook on racial trauma for teens.

Other featured wellness professionals will be violence interrupter social worker and former Cook County Commissioner Deborah Sims (D-Chicago), homeless teen advocate social worker and grief poet Flora Koppel, yogi Siri Adi Singh, internationally renowned electro-reggae artist and hospice nurse Dominique “MC Zulu” Rowland, Northwest Indiana-based therapist, and trauma recovery coach and educator Tiffany Mikell-Green.

Koppel began writing her grief poetry after the death of her son P-Lee Fresh, aka Parker Lee Williams, who was a founding father of underground Chicagoland hip-hop in its fully developed manifestion, the DJ/producer half of the legendary hip-hop group Mental Giants that collaborated with Grandmaster Caz and Cold Crush Brothers and who was long-time music supervisor for Harpo Productions and the “Oprah Winfrey Show.”

Filmmaker Caprise Williams will discuss how she explores trauma her work and the work she helps her students create. Williams has recently directed her students in producing a provocative 5-minute short about suicide.
Chicago firefighter and health and fitness lyricist Awesome/AC Wolf and the former rhyming half of Mental Giants, Akbar, will provide healing MC’ing.

Kinky P, Clash Titan and Redlox, Topspeed of Indianapolis and Scandalous of Detroit and world renowned livestreaming / podcasting Digimixdjs will provide healing DJ’ing/selection.
Torrance Smith of Bird’s Eye View Productions and CUFAC’s Operation Michaeux media unit will shoot the event for a documentary short on organizing similar heal-in events.