HEAL Conference: Mental Health Edition
About this Event
HEAL Conference: Mental Health Edition
Mental health is one of the most important conversations we can have — and it’s time to expand that conversation.
HEAL Conference: Mental Health Edition brings together powerful personal stories, mental health professionals, wellness experts, and a community of people who want to better understand the connection between the brain, body, environment, lifestyle, and emotional well-being.
This is not an evening about labels. It’s an evening about education, understanding, connection, and hope.
Together, we’ll explore topics surrounding anxiety, depression, OCD, PTSD, panic attacks, mental health, suicide prevention, addiction, and more — while also looking deeper at factors that may influence how we think, feel, and function.
You’ll hear from speakers who bring both professional expertise and lived experiences, who will share their powerful personal journey through years of severe mental health struggles and a path forward. How they found hope and help.
Throughout the event, attendees will have the opportunity to:
• Hear real stories that bring hope and perspective
• Learn from mental health and wellness professionals
• Explore the brain-body connection and factors that can influence mental well-being
• Discover resources, tools, and approaches that support overall wellness
• Connect with organizations, practitioners, and vendors in the mental health and wellness space
• Be part of conversations that reduce stigma and remind people they are not alone
Whether mental health has impacted you personally, someone you love, or the people you serve professionally, this event was created for you.
HEAL stands for Healthy Everyday Activities for Longevity — because education can change the trajectory of a life.
Come curious. Come ready to learn. Come ready for a different conversation about mental health.
Agenda
🕑: 06:00 PM - 06:15 PM
Welcome, Natalie Herbick Fox 8 News Anchor
🕑: 06:15 PM - 06:30 PM
Inspiring Message from Sgt. Travis Mills, Mills Foundation
🕑: 06:30 PM - 07:00 PM
From Suicidal to Searching for Answers: What Was Driving My Mental Health?
Info: At 17 years old, Drew Kanaba had his suicide planned out.
Today, he’s standing on a stage to tell you what happened next.
At the HEAL Conference: Mental Health Edition, Drew will share his deeply personal journey through years of debilitating mental and physical symptoms—and what finally changed when he began looking beyond the diagnosis and asking a different question:
What is driving this?
He’ll share the functional labs that helped uncover pieces of his health puzzle, the changes he made, and how his darkest chapter ultimately became the reason he now helps others search for answers.
This isn’t a story about pretending everything gets better overnight.
It’s a story about HOPE.
About what can happen when someone refuses to stop searching for answers.
And about why we need to start looking at mental health through a wider lens.
🕑: 07:00 PM - 07:30 PM
Beyond the Diagnosis: When Symptoms Are Asking Us to Look Deeper
Info: You will learn that our physical and emotional health are deeply interconnected—but the path from symptom to root cause rarely looks the same for two people.
Drawing from her own experience with debilitating fatigue and a misdiagnosis of depression, alongside years working within traditional mental health settings, Amber Bowers, LPCC-S, explores what can happen when we look beyond labels and stay curious about the whole person.
She'll discuss emotional and nervous-system contributors to physical symptoms, the limitations of a one-size-fits-all approach to mental health, and how holistic modalities such as Neuro Emotional Technique (NET) can help us begin connecting the dots.
🕑: 07:30 PM - 08:00 PM
The Other Side of Addiction
Info: Addiction doesn’t happen in isolation. When someone is struggling with substance use, the impact can extend deeply into the lives and mental health of the people who love them. Yet the emotional and psychological toll on families and loved ones is often overlooked.
In this presentation, Marisa Barber, author of The Other Side of Addiction, will share the personal and professional journey that led her to advocate for the family members and loved ones affected by addiction. Drawing from her career in the behavioral health and substance use disorder field, as well as her own lived experience of loving someone with addiction, Marisa will share why she wrote her book and the perspective she hopes to bring to the addiction and mental health conversation.
🕑: 08:00 PM - 08:45 PM
Fireside Chat with Natalie Herbick and Brent Payne, Lorain Police Officer
Info: Lorain Police Officer Brent Payne has spent the last year recovering after being shot in a deadly ambush while responding to help fellow officers.
After 25 years in law enforcement and experiencing more tragedy than most of us can imagine, Brent shares that it wasn’t until this ambush—and the injuries and recovery that followed—that he began to truly address his own mental health.
Now, he is choosing to share his story with Natalie Herbick, Fox 8 News Anchor
Not because it’s easy.
But because another officer, first responder, veteran, parent—or anyone silently carrying the weight of trauma—may need to hear it.
There is incredible strength in asking for help. There is strength in talking about what hurts. And there is strength in realizing you don’t have to carry it alone.
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
USD 23.18 to USD 60.54
