November 15th: Guest Speaker Beverly Young-Reed CPC, CBD, CPPD, CBE APPP

Hello everyone! Today we have special guest speaker Beverly Young-Reed.

Bev has been supporting families' choices in birth and parenting for over 25 years. Over the years she has earned various certifications and accreditations that help her to provide a full spectrum of support and education for the families she has worked with. Bev has never been one to take the path well-travelled by others in life, while offering to provide help, service, and non-judgemental support to those she encounters along the way. She has even been known to sit down and throw a fit once in a while to get people to listen. Bev has served on her community by being part of the National Alliance for Mental Illness, Mason/Thurston chapter board of directors where she started the "You are NOT alone" parenting group for parents who have children with mental illness. She also served on the WA state PTA board of directors as a Region Director to be a voice of parents in her community while testifying for the state legislative body on topics of mental health and education. In 1999 Bev's husband had his first , of what would be many, strokes. In 2002 he was diagnosed with a rare mitochondrial disease called MELAS. At the time Bev worked on learning what she could about this disease. Because of her knowledge of alternative health options and her desire to learn, she was ask to co-present her husband's case at Stanford. What Bev set up for her husband as far as supplements is now the normal protocol for MELAS patients. Bev has just started a new phase in her life. She is now a widow after walking with her husband on his path to death, raising 5 amazing children and changing carrier focus from pregnancy, birth and parenting to that of being a Certified Peer Counsellor where she works as part of a team in a wrap around program for youth in crisis. She draws upon her knowledge of parenting, mental health, death and dying and self care to help the families she works with. Bev has recently started going back to college and is trying to figure out what she wants to when she grows up.