The purpose of this event is to educate and empower you to guide your kids through their adolescent years. You will hear stories and information on how to help them. Then you will leave with a plan of action that you can implement at your will.

Five years ago, when I was in nursing school, I was able to get 2 mental health clinical hours if I attended an event similar to this and wrote a paper on it. That was the first time I saw Officer Gomez. He was on a panel answering questions parents had about the dangers of social media. That night I went home and started following him on Facebook. I learn something new from every single post.

One day last spring I had just been accepted to school to become a nurse practitioner and Officer Gomez posted something on Facebook. I shared his post with the 30 Facebook friends who see my posts and told them to follow him. Then I told my husband that I was going to work with Officer Gomez one day… Probably in the fall after NP school started.

I kid you not, that night at dinner I got a message from Officer Gomez. He’d seen my post and saw that I was a nurse. He invited me to do a ride-along, which I did a couple of weeks later. I learned so much about how to raise my own kids during that day.

He introduced me to one of his favorite people, Deputy Garza, who was the National Association of School Resource Officers’ SRO of the Month in September. She’s a huge advocate for kids. She will share practical, simple ways for you to help your kids.

Back to that event I told you about earlier. The main speaker was a man named Colin Kartchner. Many of you have heard of him. Some of you may have been there. Before he died, he was a huge advocate for kids. He had a podcast that I started listening to after the event. I was a little behind when he passed away, so I saved the rest of his podcast episodes to listen to when I was ready.

Last summer, I finally listened to the last one. It was recorded 2 years ago from the date of the first Save My Family event. October 20, 2020. He interviewed Dr. Condie, a pediatric neurologist who happened to be local to Boise. I was already starting to organize this event and I knew that he had to be part of it, so I googled him, found out where he worked, called his office, left a message asking if he would be part of this, and waited. His people called me back telling me he was in and excited to share his knowledge with us.

I have known Agent Hart for many years. His daughter used to babysit my kids. He is a former FBI agent and now Chief Deputy of the Canyon County Sheriff’s Office. When you read his bio, know that I cut about half of it. He has been saving the world for a long time and when he speaks, what comes out is important.

Did you know that there’s often a 3-9 month wait to see a mental health provider? When I applied to NP school, I did so hoping to help people. But I don’t graduate until 2025. What can we do before then to help our kids… to Save Our Families?

That’s another purpose of this event. We want to prevent mental health issues that are caused by what the speakers will talk about today. Our hope is to have our kids not need to be on that long waitlist