Powerful, Funny and Passionate about Mental Health
speaker, author and advocate Tara Rolstad

About Tara
Tara Rolstad can help your community or organization get real about mental health. Tara is an advocate, author and speaker who left a career as a nonprofit executive to help raise nieces who lived with severe mental illness. Now, Tara helps others understand the experiences of those who struggle with mental health issues, and their families. Because mental health affects everyone… with a brain.
Tara is the founder and director of Shattering Stigma with Stories: Understanding Mental Health; produces mental health conferences for faith communities, businesses and other organizations; and blogs at shatteringstigma.com. She has performed stand-up comedy around the Pacific Northwest with Stand Up for Mental Health, and is co-author of the book “No, Really, We WANT You to Laugh: Mental Illness and Stand-Up Comedy: Transforming Lives.”
Whether speaking to businesses, faith communities, medical professionals, mental health workers, family members or general audiences, Tara is uniquely direct, funny, passionate, and unlikely to keep a thought to herself.
RECENT ENGAGEMENTS:
Oregon State School Board Association – state conference, November ’18
Big Feelings, Tough Behaviors – tri-county conference for parents and daycare providers, October ’18
NAMI Oregon – state conference, October ’18
Armed with Hope – conference for parents and teens, September ’18
Most Requested Topics
How to Help: Supporting People with Mental Health Issues
When mental illness happens to someone we know, often we don’t know what to do. Hear Tara’s inspiring story of being a family member and raising nieces with severe mental illness, and what she learned about what families and individuals struggling with mental illness need, and easy ways you can help, whether it’s a friend, neighbor, coworker or a member of your own family.
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Hey, We Can Do This!
Getting it right and getting real on mental health: Learn practical tips for how your organization, church, or business can make simple changes to your existing programs to more effectively serve your people living with mental illness and their families.
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Who's Got Time for That? Supporting Caregivers
Self-care for caregivers is serious business. It’s not as simple as a night out with friends, or a glass of wine and a bath, but it can make all the difference for those who are taking care of someone else with a mental illness or other serious chronic illness. With her trademark humor, Tara shares her story as a caregiver; why self care is so important and the risks faced by caregivers; and practical strategies to be sure your or the people you care about are taking care of themselves AND their loved ones.
Contact MeWhat People Are Saying
“Tara is great at engaging the audience with a call to action, which is critical for our mission.
Her presentations are always a draw for our events, and I know going into an event that she’ll take care of all of the details I need. She’s a pleasure to work with!”
—Michelle Madison, Events and Outreach Manager, NAMI Oregon

“Tara Rolstad is at the forefront of a vital and timely cause: helping us think compassionately about the impact of mental illness on the family, the church, and the community. For too long we’ve only whispered about the subject or felt ashamed when depression, bi-polar, or other cognitive dysfunction impacted us or our families. With raw vulnerability and unexpected humor, Tara is helping break the stigma around mental health, so that we can all do a better job of loving our family and neighbors well.”
—Marc Alan Schelske, writer, speaker, pastor, and author of “The Wisdom of Your Heart”

—Julie A. Fast, bestselling mental health author of books including “Loving Someone with Bipolar Disorder,” “Take Charge of Bipolar Disorder,” speaker and coach

—Elisabeth Genly, speaker, co-author of “Save Yourself from Burnout: A System to Get Your Life Back”
“Tara Rolstad educates, engages and captivates her audience. She is well researched, highly organized and, when appropriate, extremely funny. There are few people who can speak as competently on the emotionally charged intersection between faith and mental illness as can Tara. She is as unabashed in her earthy, honest discussion of how mental illness has touched her family as she is in her total reliance on God. As someone who has pastored churches for over a quarter century and who also works as an RN on an in-patient behavioral health unit I would trust no one more to address either of the populations I serve than Tara.”
—The Rev. Timothy Winslea, pastor and psychiatric RN
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Want to learn more about having me speak at your event, facilitate a workshop, or consult with your organization? Let’s talk! Just share some basic information with me in this form, which will magically send me an email, and I’ll be in touch.