Earlier this month as part of Mental Health Awareness Week, Lily Gaudreau, Lily Carlos and Mallory Brooks, three members of the Mental Health and Advocacy Group at Brooks Secondary School, had the opportunity to represent their group and present at the Mental Health in Schools conference in Vancouver.
With guidance and support from their school counsellor, Elaine Maxwell, the group created a presentation showcasing the work its members are doing within their school community. Gaudreau and Brooks were able to share the presentation, which highlighted key learnings and the impact of their initiatives, at the qathet School District board meeting on Wednesday, May 28.
"We're a group of 50 members working together to promote mental health awareness in our school; about 10 of us meet every Tuesday at lunch to discuss and plan initiatives focused on supporting students' well-being," said Gaudreau. "Our mission is to destigmatize mental health and normalize open and honest discussion around it. This is so important to us because every member of our school has been affected by mental health in some way, and we believe creating a more supportive and understanding environment can make a huge difference."
The group created a survey in order to find out how students feel about mental health, and if they are able to access what they need when it comes to resources and help.
"We had around 500 responses, and this helped us gain a better understanding of what our school needed from us and how to take action," said Brooks. "We used a QR code for easy access."
Brooks and Gaudreau said students in grades eight and 10 were the most responsive to the survey.
"Many of our students at Brooks believe it is important to learn about mental health, and this shows our club is able to make a difference in our school because the students are engaged and they care," said Gaudreau. "According to our survey, 84.3 per cent of students reported experiencing some form of stress or anxiety during the time of high school. Of those, 25 per cent experience it daily. "
They said 74 per cent of students reported anxiety and stress around school workload, 47 per cent reported anxiety over social pressures, and 33 percent mentioned family issues.
"One of our projects was creating the rack card," said Gaudreau. "Since kids reported that they didn't really know where to get help, we wanted to create an information card that would show all resources in school and community."
The information card recommended online apps like MindShift for managing anxiety and stress, and Calm for breathing programs and meditation.
"We added our counsellor at the school, Miss Maxwell, who works with students," said Brooks. "We also included community resources like Youth and Family and the ICY program."
The Integrated Child and Youth (ICY) program brings clinical counselling into the school setting, bridging gaps where counsellors may not have the capacity for intensive clinical work.
The group said its next initiative is to explore impacts of mobile phone use on student mental health.
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