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Meghan MarkleandPrince Harrywill mark World Mental Health Day in New York City next week, PEOPLE exclusively reveals.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will be in N.Y.C. on Tuesday, Oct. 10 for their Archewell Foundation’s first in-person event, providing a platform for parents navigating mental health challenges in today’s digital age.
The Archewell Foundation will host ‘The Archewell Foundation Parents’ Summit: Mental Wellness in a Digital Age’to give voice to families who are passionate about building a safer online world for children and teens, PEOPLE exclusively reveals. The conversation will explore how we as a community, both globally and locally, are creating positive change and supporting one another in developing solutions to empower families and uplift our collective mental well-being.
The summit will feature parents who have experienced tragic loss connected to their child’s social media use. Meghan and Harry have been working with the parents involved in next week’s event behind the scenes, PEOPLE has learned.
“The families have been engaged with The Archewell Foundation for the past year, bolstering community and driving towards solutions,” a spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex tells PEOPLE. “Together, they are united in their mission to share personal experiences, data, and research to ensure the same does not happen to other families.”
The event will take place on Tuesday, October 10 as part of Project Healthy Minds’ second annual World Mental Health Day Festival, the first and largest of its kind in the country. Project Healthy Minds is a Millennial and Gen Z-driven non-profit focused on tackling the growing mental health crisis, and a longtime partner of Meghan and Harry’s Archewell Foundation.
Uplifting communities, building a better online world and restoring trust in information are the key pillars of the Archewell Foundation, which Prince Harry and Meghan launched in 2020. The Archewell Foundation operates with the core belief that mental health and collective wellbeing is paramount and approaches all philanthropic work through this lens.
The Archewell Foundation Parents’ Summit will Meghan and Harry’s first trip to New York City following the Ms. FoundationWomen of Vision Awardsin May, where the Duchess of Sussex was honored. The following day, a spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex said the couple and Meghan’s motherDoria Raglandwere involvedin a “near catastrophic car chase at the hands of a ring of highly aggressive paparazzi.”
Harry and Meghan have long made mental health a key tenant of their public work, andhave supportedWorld Mental Health Day in recent years. In 2020, the couple joined theTeenager Therapypodcast and spoke to five senior students at an Anaheim, California, high school about prioritizing mental health. The appearance came after the couple relocated to Meghan’s home state. following their step back from their royal roles in the U.K.
On Oct. 11 last year — the day after World Mental Health Day — the Duchess of Sussex opened up on her podcastArchetypesabout how Harry found her a referral to a mental health professional when she was at her “worst point.”
“I mean, I think at my worst point, being finally connected to someone that, you know, my husband had found a referral for me to call. And I called this woman,” Meghan said in conversation with activist and Bollywood star Deepika Padukone for an episode titled “The Decoding of Crazy.”
“She didn’t know I was even calling her. And she was checking out at the grocery store. I could hear the little beep, beep, and I was like, ‘Hi,’ and I’m introducing myself and that you can literally you’re going, wait, sorry. I’m just. Who is this? Um, and saying I need help. And she could hear the dire state that I was in,” Meghan recalled. “But I think it’s for all of us to be really honest about what it is that you need and to not be afraid to make peace with that, to ask for it.”
In the series,King Charles’ son spoke about experiencing panic attacks, starting therapy and processing the death of his mother,Princess Diana. Harry also revealed that Meghan inspired him to seriously pursue therapy.
“It was meeting and being with Meghan, I knew that if I didn’t do therapy and fix myself, that I was going to lose this woman who I could see spending the rest of my life with,” he explained.
Mental health was a key theme throughout the Duke of Sussex’s memoirSpare, released in January.
Speaking with PEOPLE exclusivelyahead of the book’s release, Prince said says his one hope with releasing the text is to “turn my pain into purpose,” adding, “If sharing my experience makes a positive difference in someone’s life, well, I can’t think of anything more rewarding than that!”
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Makingthe announcementon theirArchewell Foundationsite, Prince Harry and Meghan said they’d learned “firsthand about this generation’s experiences with social media and societal pressures, and how it affects their mental well-being. The couple engaged with these amazing youth in candid conversation, working to find solutions together.”
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex made multiple mental health-related engagements before stepping back from their royal roles, from abeachfront chatwith OneWave, an Australian surf group dedicated to raising awareness for mental health, and visit to Waves for Change, an organization that supportslocal mentorsproviding mental health services to vulnerable young people living in under-resourced communities in South Africa.
If you or someone you know needs mental health help, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.
source: people.com
