May is designated as National Mental Health Awareness Month. This past May 6 to 10, Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health (C&A) designed Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week in Stark County to bring awareness to children and adolescent mental health. Two-thirds of all teenagers before the age of 16 have a least one traumatic experience.
C&A partners with eight school districts in Stark County: Alliance, Canton and Massillon city schools and Lake, Marlington, Plain, Sandy Valley, and Tuslaw local school districts. Throughout this week, a brief morning announcement was read in each school building to reinforce a positive message. The message that was said depended on the age group within the school. For example,
K-4:
Day 1: May is Mental Health Month! This week, Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health would like to offer you some positive thoughts to help keep your mind healthy! Child & Adolescent Behavioral Health’s positive thought for the day is:
Think left and think right and think low and think high
Oh, the thinks you can think up if you only try!
~Dr.Seuss
Grades 5-12
Day 1: May is Mental Health Month! This week, Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health would like to offer you some positive thoughts to help keep your mind healthy! Your positive thought for the day is:
Your present circumstances don’t determine where you go; they merely determine where you start
~Nido Qubein
Each school was also given two posters that were hung in their school building throughout the month of May. The K-4 poster had a message that said “Be happy, Be honest, Be kind,” while the grade 5-12 said “Right now is…Not your forever.”
TD’s Tailgate restaurant also partnered with C&A to raise awareness for children’s mental health. Customers that ate at TD Tailgate located in North Canton, 1645 N. Main Street, throughout the month of May had the opportunity to donate $1, $5, or $10. Additionally, C&A had a guest bartending night on May 20 at the same location. The guest bartenders were C&A board members Mike Gallina and Heather Pennington.
C&A is the primary and only agency in Stark County that works exclusively with children age 0 to 24 helping adolescents with behavioral and emotional issues. Last year, C&A worked with more than 4,000 youth and families. C&A offers the following programs and services to clients: Prevention, Early Childhood, Middle Childhood, School-Based Consultation, Transitional Youth, Trauma, Trauma-Informed Day Treatment, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Sexual Inappropriate Behavioral Remediation and Multi-systemic Therapy/ Multi-systemic for Sexual Behavior.
