0 views
Forsyth County Behavioral Health Services holds its second Behavioral Health Symposium on Friday, October 9, 2026, at the Strickland Conference Center at Forsyth Technical Community College, running from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., according to reports. The day-long gathering returns for a second edition with a single word as its organising theme.
This year’s theme is “STIGMA.” Framing the symposium that way puts the focus on how attitudes and assumptions shape the experience of behavioural health care, from seeking help to receiving it. A themed programme of this kind signals that the conversation is meant to go beyond services alone and into the conditions that decide whether people feel able to use them.
The opening plenary will be delivered by Dr. Lawrence Yang of Duke University. His work treats stigma as a multi-level determinant of health, an approach that looks at how stigma operates at more than one level at once. Opening the day with that framing sets the terms for the sessions that follow, giving attendees a shared lens before the programme divides into smaller discussions.
The schedule runs across six hours, from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., and includes breakout sessions alongside the plenary. Breakouts allow the broad theme to be taken up in smaller settings, where the multi-level view of stigma can be applied to particular areas of practice and experience. The structure moves from a common opening to more focused conversation.
Networking and resource sharing are also built into the day. Those elements point to a practical purpose alongside the educational one: connecting the people who attend, and circulating resources that participants can take back into their work. A symposium that combines a plenary, breakouts and resource sharing is designed to leave attendees with contacts as well as ideas.
As the second edition of the event, the symposium suggests an established place in the county’s behavioural health calendar. With stigma as the stated theme, a Duke University plenary speaker treating it as a multi-level determinant of health, and a full day at the Strickland Conference Center, the October 9 gathering keeps attention on one of the persistent barriers in the field.
