Collegiate Self-Care Fairs – Child & Adolescent Behavioral Health

COLLEGIATE SELF-CARE

The transformation from being a teenager to learning to "adult" is challenging. When taking into account, many young adults are doing this while away from home and at college or the military, reinforcing self-care tips, resiliency and coping mechanism skills are important.

C&A will spend two hours on each of Stark County's college campuses to work with campus counselors to provide a mental health fair to remind students the importance of taking care of themselves. Other partners for fairs include:

Coleman Crisis Center. If students are struggling, Coleman will provide information on their Mobile Crisis Unit. They will also provide important crisis information and phone/text numbers for students to remember in an emergency that occurs outside of campus counseling center hours.
Stark County Mental Health & Addiction Recovery (StarkMHAR) is providing students with suicide awareness/prevention pocket packets as well as fidget toys to use in stressful situations.
C&A's Adult Led Prevention will provide information on a new support group to help students promote positive behaviors and substance-free lifestyles.

Presentations

Returning to college after winter break is both exciting for many students and depressing at the same time. Catching up with friends after the holidays and participating in extracurricular activities is thrilling. For some students, after being home, returning to school with shorter, often dreary weather days, evokes feelings of depression.

C&A is partnering with the National Alliance of Mental Health (NAMI) to present two trainings to help students beat the "winter blues."

C&A's Trauma Specialist Mary Kreitz will present a Resiliency training on Jan. 23.
NAMI's Robin Holland will present Mental First Aid on Feb. 12.

Both trainings will be presented online for campus communities and the public.

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SELF CARE FAIR ACTIVITIES

C&A's partnership with each school is to enhance mental health fairs already scheduled on campus. C&A will be providing the following activities on campus:

The Jenga Resiliency Tower. Students pull Jenga blocks with positive mental health messages on the block and build the tower. When the tower falls, students use the self-care tips on the tower to rebuild their own resiliency.
The Dice Game. Students will roll one die. The number on the dice will correspond to a self-care question the student will answer.
Students will receive information sheets on time management, nutrition and other self-care tips
Students will receive suicide prevention information, fidget toys, a positive affirmation chip, mental health decal sticker and participate in a make-and-take project.
This year's make-and-take project has students placing six colored beads on a folded pipe cleaner. As students slide each bead, the student is reminded to breathe in and breathe out. A great reminder for relaxation.
Yard signs will also be on campus with warning signs on suicide prevention and phone numbers to use in a crisis situation.
Students will write a note as part of take a note, leave a positive note activity.