Living through COVID-19 can make anyone feel disconnected and isolated from their community. With teens across America experiencing a lack of social interaction, The All In My Head Podcast was created. While in the heart of Covid-19, a group of teens got together in Portland, Oregon to do something meaningful with their time. We started off with a vague idea for a youth-run podcast that focuses on the marginalized members of our community. We have targeted recruitment from within our community to ensure we are a diverse group of individuals who can offer different perspectives on difficult and heavy topics to make sure everyone has an identity that is represented within the podcast.
Over the past several months we have produced 10+ episodes with the intention of supporting our community through a wide variety of struggles teens face. This includes topics such as suicide, cultural appropriation, and multiple episodes on the struggles of LGBTQ+ and BIPOC youth. Through these episodes, we’ve had multiple guest speakers come on and share their unique and varied experiences. We’ve also partnered with community organizations like the Sexual and Gender Minority Resource Center and showed up at events to physically support LGBTQ+ and BIPOC youth in Portland.
This podcast has been made possible by local Oregon-based grants for youth engagement: the LGBTQ+ Mini-Grant by the Oregon Health Authority, the Association of Oregon Community Mental Health programs, and the Oregon Alliance to Prevent Suicide. In addition to this, we have been acknowledged for our work from Sources of Strength, a peer lead suicide prevention program.
The All In My Head Podcast can be found from wherever you get your podcasts. Also, make sure you follow us on Instagram @the_allinmyheadpodcast to stay in the loop. Lastly, we are recruiting for our podcast: if you are interested, please email us or DM us on Instagram for more information!