About Janine Monico

Janine Monico is a digital marketing consultant who has managed the Healthy Minds Philly initiative website since 2015.

Incarceration to Healing, Addiction to Recovery

I am a person in recovery from mental health and substance use disorders. For many years, I carried a good deal of anger and resentment so, instead of addressing my issues, I turned to using drugs. Unlike many others, my addiction began in prison. It happened at one of the lowest times in my life, when I lost my father. Here I was, incarcerated and drugs were available, so I turned to the one thing that I always tried to avoid. In trying to mask my pain there were times [...]

2024-08-22T12:49:11-04:00September 14th, 2018|Addiction & Recovery|

Autism Spectrum Disorder: Demystifying the Myth

Growing up in Nigeria, a sub- Sahara Africa country, I grew up with different myths and ideas of what a disability is and how people with disabilities should be treated.  I knew they should not be isolated, segregated and not allowed to participate in normal life events. Children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, live a traumatic life because Nigerian society does not believe in intellectual disabilities that do not manifest physically, such a person who lives with Down syndrome or cerebral palsy.  Parents face stigma on an everyday basis if [...]

2023-04-04T15:23:57-04:00August 27th, 2018|Autism, Awareness, Intellectual disAbility|

Mental Health at Work

Studies show that 1 in 5 employees have a mental health disorder, the most common being depression and anxiety. Because people often hide their problems at work, many of those who suffer never get the support and treatment that could significantly improve quality of life and job performance. To address this problem, it’s helpful to understand how mental health symptoms often present at work as compared to in other situations. For example, a coworker who is depressed may seem nervous, restless, or irritable, and complain of physical aches and pains. [...]

2018-08-06T17:55:49-04:00August 6th, 2018|Stress|

Recognizing Minority Mental Health Awareness Month

July is Minority Mental Health Awareness month. You might wonder: why the distinction, if mental health doesn’t discriminate across race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation? Consider this: while the number of people experiencing mental illness may be the same across demographic groupings, people's access to care and quality of treatment for mental illness varies greatly. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, “the quality of and access to mental health care are suboptimal for minority groups.” NIMH also describes several recent studies showing that “members of racial and ethnic [...]

2018-07-10T14:49:34-04:00July 10th, 2018|Mental Health|
Go to Top