A Conversation with Trish Glowacki, Founder of the Glowmedia Project

Trish Glowacki is a filmmaker, writer and songwriter. Her first musical, WARNING: Take Only As Directed, was adapted to the screen. The award-winning film has proven to be an innovative and effective tool for teaching teens, their educators, parents and guardians about the dangers of prescription medicine misuse. Trish launched glowmedia in 2016 and is making a series of short films, based on the Warning model, addressing a broad range of mental health issues.

In November 2011, Trish lost her 21-year old son, Charlie, after a five-year battle with anxiety, depression and substance abuse. Charlie died of an accidental Oxycontin overdose. In the wake of Charlie’s passing, the family searched for ways to both handle the incredible grief and honor their beloved son's memory. Trish, an accomplished musician and thespian, set out to write songs and a play about Charlie. In the process of writing and researching, she realized a larger vision for his legacy.

The growing opioid crisis had just started to reach a national consciousness. Overdoses have quadrupled since 1991 and the crisis has penetrated both rural and urban communities, crossing ethnic and socio-economic boundaries. Armed with a powerful story and an urgency to educate youth nationwide, Trish decided to adapt her play into a short film musical that could be used as a unique teaching resource. The goal was to produce a high-quality short film and disseminate it to as many middle and high school classrooms as possible.

Leveraging her extensive contacts in the music and film industries, Trish enlisted studio musicians, hired a film director and production company, and co-wrote the screenplay. The 26-minute film, Warning: Take Only as Directed, premiered in 2014 and soon after was added to Discovery Education, the nation’s largest provider of digital educational content. To date, the film has been viewed by over a million students nationwide. The film comes with free resource guides and lesson plans. These materials facilitate classroom conversation and enhance understanding of the film content.

The overwhelming success of this film inspired the Glowacki family to focus on other sensitive issues facing today’ s youth. In 2016, they created a 501c3 organization, the glowmedia project, and started fundraising for the development of a series of new films that, like Warning, seek to build awareness and reduce stigma around various challenges affecting teenagers. Three new short films, co-written by Trish and Andrea Hansell, Ph.D., a licensed clinical child and adolescent psychologist, were released in 2017. These films focus on eating disorders/body image, anxiety and depression, and LGBTQ+ topics. Similar to Warning: Take Only as Directed, these shorts integrate music, realistic characters and dialogue, and authentic storylines. They also come with educational materials, created by experts in the field.

The fifth film, addressing bipolar disorder, King of the World, was released in 2020. The pandemic brought new projects to a halt, but they were able to produce a documentary about the effects of the pandemic on the mental health of teens, Unimaginable, which will be released this fall.

With pandemic restrictions lifted, they were able to film their seventh short, addressing suicide prevention, There Can Be Light, in May. That film will premiere this fall in select cities in October (L.A. on 10/1 and Silver Spring, MD's American Film Institute on 10/12), and be released in early 2023.

Learn more:

glowmedia.org

FB: @glowmediaorg, IG/twitter: @glowmediafilms, Vimeo.com/glowmedia

*Dial 988 for the Mental Health Crisis Line