NAMI Ask the Expert Webinar welcomes Diana Chao, founder of the largest global youth-for-youth mental health nonprofit, Letters to Strangers (L2S) who will share her personal story as a first-generation Chinese-American immigrant navigating a bipolar disorder diagnosis and healing through writing letters. This presentation — which features spoken word, conceptual art and letters written by young people around the world — addresses the complexities of mental health in underrepresented communities and speaks to the power that even the smallest acts of kindness can have.

Diana will also share actionable strategies for maintaining mental wellbeing gathered from eight years of interviews and frontline interventions.

After the presentation, NAMI’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Ken Duckworth will moderate a Q&A session.

This session will be recorded and posted to our website in the days following the webinar. All registrants for this webinar will automatically receive a link by email to view the recorded session once it is available. A typed transcription of the audio will also be available online within one week of the webinar.

OUR EXPERT

Diana Chao is a first-generation Chinese-American immigrant from Southern California. She founded Letters to Strangers (L2S) when she was a sophomore in high school after bipolar disorder nearly ended her life. By beginning to heal through letters, she discovered that writing is humanity distilled into ink.

Today, L2S is the largest global youth-for-youth mental health nonprofit, impacting more than 35,000 people every year on six continents and publishing the world’s first youth-for-youth mental health guidebook for free. For this effort, Diana has been named a 2021 Princess Diana Legacy Award Winner, 2020 L’Oréal Paris Women of Worth, and Oprah Magazine’s 2019 Health Hero. As part of Adobe’s inaugural class of global Top Talents, Diana’s “Minority Mental Health Month” self-portrait series went viral with 2+ million views, and she teaches and speaks on youth mental health. But most of the time, she is a 2021 graduate of Princeton University trying to figure out how best to navigate life.