Helaina Hovitz is a writer, speaker, and advocate, best known for her work on topics like mental health, trauma recovery, and resilience. She became a prominent voice after her experience surviving the 9/11 attacks in New York City. Hovitz was a young teen at the time, and the traumatic event had a significant impact on her life and mental well-being. She writes about how trauma affects individuals and the long-term process of healing, as well as news pertaining to Social Good and Impact Journalism.

A lively speaker, Helaina can connect easily with younger audiences, parents, clinicians and educators and on mental health issues countless other young and female members of the sober, PTSD, and other recovery communities. By using humor and sharing her most vulnerable and painful experiences openly and honestly, she is able to connect with almost any audience, and always, always finds a way to bring the message back to hope and the solution.

Helaina is able to help young people who may not have the words to express their traumatic incident in their lives start to understand their experiences and choices. She has assisted individuals of all ages and backgrounds begin to connect the dots between their day to day experiences, thoughts, fears, feelings, behaviors, and what might be driving them. In sharing what has and has not worked for her and her peers, she can help clinicians better understand how to diagnose and treat trauma and addiction relating both to 9/11 and to everyday trauma and alcoholism. Helaina brings warmth, laughter and hope to her audiences with a strong focus on the positive and always an inspirational message.

Helaina has written a memoir titled “After 9/11: One Girl’s Journey Trough Darkness to a New Beginning.” She is also active in public speaking, using her platform to raise awareness about the long-term effects of trauma and the importance of mental health care.

She emphasizes the importance of normalizing mental health conversations and making resources available to people dealing with trauma, especially in the wake of significant life events like 9/11.

Her work continues to inspire those navigating their own trauma and recovery, particularly in helping them find ways to process their experiences and develop resilience over time.

Helaina advocates for empathy, understanding, and support systems for individuals experiencing psychological struggles.

Testimonials:

“Helaina Hovitz connected with my middle school students immediately and kept them engaged for over an hour. She discussed complicated social issues in a way that made them accessible to adolescents and challenged them to think more deeply.  She’s a magnetic blend of caring counselor, cool big sister, and harbinger of hope.”

—Kathryn Walseman, Middle School Teacher, Virginia

“Ms. Hovitz really brought the experience of 9/11 to life for my students, who sometimes have difficulty with empathy and understanding the world beyond their own community. She told the kids about what happened on that day and how it has affected her in a thoughtful and insightful manner.  Their questions were welcomed and it allowed the students to have a personal connection to the events of September 11 in a way that a news article could not. Immediately after the conversation, the students asked our library to purchase copies of Ms. Hovitz’ book so that they could explore her life further. As a teacher, any request to continue learning means the lesson and the interaction with “real history” were of value.”

—Denise Stanfa, Teacher, Heineman Middle School, Illonois

Students and Schools:

One of the most amazing responses to this book has been the outreach from kids across the country who emailed in with poems, words of encouragement, and, most importantly, their questions. In answering their emails and setting up video chats with kids in classrooms from Alabama to Wisconsin, Helaina realized that there was a real need to educate children and parents (in various age groups) on the topics of:

• The young adult’s response to the cumulative impact of trauma from 9/11, everyday stressors and other interpersonal, societal or disaster-related traumas
• Living through 9/11 directly as a young person
• Emotional intelligence and heightened understanding around how to name, understand, and cope with feelings around exposure to traumatic events, whether firsthand or through media exposure.
• Turning dark struggles and awful events into positive outcomes and focusing on hope, positivity, and community
• Where to find the best, well-vetted resources and information
• Insights into the most effective types of therapy and other supports when it comes to coping and healing
• Overcoming hardships like bullying
• Early signs and gradual stages of PTSD and how to look for and treat them
• Fighting stigma around reaching out for help on any number of health and mental issues

If she can’t make it in person, she is happy to set up a Skype/Video chat.

Professional Speaking Engagements on Psychology, Addiction, Recovery:

• The way Post Traumatic Stress Disorder affects young people in complex ways- from childhood to young adulthood
• How our current state of affairs has been informed by 9/11 and the events that followed
• The current prevalence of PTSD, anxiety disorders, and addiction in relation to those still affected by 9/11
• Coping with the everyday trauma that occurs for any number of reasons, like natural disasters, acts of war or violence like mass shootings, domestic violence, sexual abuse and rape, an unstable living environment, a parent living with addiction or alcoholism, medical trauma, and other causes
• How and why PTSD and addiction/alcoholism co-occur
• The ways that PTSD inform our choices and our behavior as young people and adults
• Why PTSD is so often undiagnosed or misdiagnosed and why the disorder can often present as something else
• Effective courses of treatment
• Ways to begin making the distinction between problem behavior and a more serious underlying issue.
• Differentiating social binge drinking from alcoholic drinking or self-medicating in young people

Journalism, Social Entrepreneurship, Media for Social Good:

As an editor, freelancer, co-founder and editorial director of a start-up digital news site dedicated to people and organizations working to make a better future, she can discuss:

• The challenges we face as journalists in 2017
• The modern media and journalism landscape as a medium for social good and social change and involvement
• Creating our own opportunities to forge meaningful careers
• Navigating the obstacles and road blocks to a career as a journalist writing stories of impact
• Our responsibility as journalists to continue to cover meaningful and well-reported news in a way that is accessible and relevant to consumers in a modern-day digital world, especially as it pertains to social media
• The ways in which the written word and journalism can be used as a tool to help educate and inspire social change
• How her journey led me down this career path of writing positive news after working towards an improved worldview

Please contact me directly at HelainaWrites@gmail.com to discuss any of the above.