Photo courtesy of Dr. Jeremy Richman
Richman, Hensel and Avielle
The loss of a child.
It’s a thought too painful for most parents to bear, but it became all too true a reality for Dr. Jeremy Richman and his wife, Jennifer Hensel, on Dec. 14, 2012. Their daughter, Avielle, was murdered along with 19 classmates and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Avielle was 6 years old.
Richman describes the feeling of losing Avielle as akin to being spun off the earth and literally needing to hold on. Immediately, he and Hensel knew they needed to do something to help prevent anyone else from going through such a tragedy.
“In that depth of horrible despair, both Jennifer and I said, ‘We’ve got to do something to prevent other people from suffering,’” he says. “In addition, realistically, we also needed to be able to find hope – find something to get us out of bed in the morning. To find a purpose.”
A few days after Avielle’s funeral, Richman and Hensel started the Avielle Foundation. What is the root of violence? How do we educate others on violence prevention? The Avielle Foundation set out to answer these important questions.
The first step in this endeavor was to better understand the brain. The brain is the most complex, important and powerful organ in the human body, yet scientists know less about brain sciences than any other sciences, says Richman.
“We know more about subatomic particle structures and we know more about the bottom of our oceans and the surface of Mars than we do about how our brain works,” he says.
Richman wants to make illnesses of the brain more tangible. Understanding the brain better is vital to the Avielle Foundation goal; bringing about awareness that the brain is simply another organ, and that abnormal behavior is the result of abnormal chemistry or structure in that organ.
“We need to move away from the invisible mental towards the visible brain health,” Richman says.
Photo courtesy of Dr. Jeremy Richman
Avielle
On Feb. 23, Richman visited New Albany to explore these topics at the Philip Heit Center for Healthy New Albany. Healthy New Albany Inc. Program Manager Abbey Brooks says the stigma revolving around the term “mental health” is part of what has held research back. After hearing Richman talk about the brain on NPR, she knew she needed to get him to talk at the Heit Center.
“(I) just stopped what I was doing and thought, wow,” says Brooks. “This guy is just fascinating and saying a lot of the things … that we’re saying here at the center about brain health and the way that we should be thinking about the brain and how it works, and knew that we needed to get him here.”
Richman accepted, partly because of the mission behind Healthy New Albany, one he says has inspired Heit Center patrons to get healthy and stay healthy.
“I think that the Heit Center – and New Albany in general – is such a profoundly amazing example of forward thinking,” says Richman. “It’s a whole community that is built around engagement.”
Photo courtesy of Healthy New Albany Inc.
The Heit Center, being dedicated to health on both a physical and mental level, brought Richman in to speak on Feb. 23
Photo courtesy of Dr. Jeremy Richman
Avielle and Richman
At his talk on Feb. 23, Richman delved into the specifics of the research the Avielle Foundation is funding. He also talked about not being complacent, but proactive, and treating brain diseases like a disease of any other organ.
“If you do get diagnosed with a brain illness, you are named that half the time. You are bipolar. You are schizophrenic,” Richman says. “And if you label a child as ADHD, I guarantee it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Brooks lauded Richman and Hensel’s desire to talk so openly about the tragedy that affected their family a little over four years ago with such bravery. She says that what they are doing is so important because it’s an issue that affects everyone in different ways.
“Their willingness to move forward from an unimaginable tragedy and to do something good with what happened to them, I think, is really, in itself, a message to all of us,” Brooks says.
For more information visit www.aviellefoundation.org. Richman says donations are always accepted because “every cent is change,” and the Avielle Foundation is on multiple social media platforms in order to get the word out on brain health.
“The more that people are talking about brain health (and) the more that people are comfortable discussing it, the lesser the barriers there will be for people to get help,” Richman says.
Zachary Konno is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at adeperro@cityscenemediagroup.com.
