Dr. Huston on the PENZONE Podcast: Transforming the Children's Mental Health Conversation
Mental health conversations don't only happen in therapy offices, schools, or hospital hallways. Sometimes they happen in the most unexpected places — and that's exactly the point.
Dr. Parker Huston was featured on the PENZONE Podcast, From the Outside In, hosted by Debbie Penzone, President and CEO of PENZONE Salons + Spas — a Columbus institution with more than 50 years of connecting community and self-care in the beauty and wellness space. The episode is titled "Transforming the Mental Health Conversation" and it's one of the most important kinds of outreach COPBH engages in: reaching people where they already are, in spaces they trust.
▶ Listen to the full episode here
At the time of the interview, Dr. Huston was serving as Clinical Director of the On Our Sleeves program at Nationwide Children's Hospital — a movement dedicated to transforming children's mental health and starting important conversations about mental wellness.
Key themes from the episode:
Breaking the stigma is the first step. The episode centers on why so many families delay or avoid seeking mental health support for their children — and what it takes to change that. Stigma doesn't disappear through clinical messaging alone. It changes when trusted community voices, including business leaders, salon owners, and neighbors, make space for the conversation.
Environment is part of healing. The episode explores why the new Big Lots Behavioral Health Pavilion at Nationwide Children's Hospital was intentionally designed to look nothing like a typical hospital — and how the physical environment around us plays a significant role in the healing process. This philosophy extends to how COPBH designs the experience of care for every child and family we serve.
Community is the platform. The fact that this conversation happened on a beauty and wellness podcast — not a medical journal or a pediatrics conference — is itself the message. Children's mental health belongs in every community conversation: at the salon, at the soccer field, at the kitchen table. Dr. Huston showing up in spaces like this is part of how stigma gets dismantled.
At COPBH, we believe that the more our community talks openly about children's mental health, the more families feel empowered to seek help early — before a struggle becomes a crisis. Dr. Huston and our clinicians are available for media features, podcast interviews, school presentations, and community speaking engagements across Central Ohio.