STARK SCHOOLS CELEBRATE MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK

Dan Mucci • Apr 26, 2023

Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health (C&A’s) and its community partners are celebrating a milestone fifth anniversary of Stark County Schools Mental Health Awareness Week, May 1-5. This year, C&A and its community partners are using this opportunity to bring positive mental health awareness to more than 53,000 students and more than 6,000 teachers, administrators, cooks and bus drivers all across Stark County.


Each year, the program continues to grow, bringing more Stark County school districts and students together to celebrate and remind the students important tips for positive mental health. All 18 Stark County school districts and 19 high schools have selected at least one student to discuss how that student views mental health through peer-to-peer videos. These students are recognized on social media and C&A’s website as a Stark County “mental health champion.” A record 33 student mental health champions created a short video answering a question about how they view mental health, how their friends look at mental health and what they personally do to help other students around them. These champions reflect the uniqueness and diversity of our schools. The champions range from athletes, performers and students who have a passion for bringing awareness and helping to remove the stigma associated with mental health. During the past several years, Stark County’s mental health champions know that it is “ok not to be ok everyday” but there are trusted adults and fellow students to help you through on days individuals are struggling.

Each participating school district receives a package of materials from C&A. The packages contain some items that allow for students to self-affirm, recognize and learn about mental health. People, specifically young people, assume mental health is something only certain individuals go through, but in reality, everyone faces mental health challenges in some way. A person does not always need to see a doctor to deal with mental health. Our physical health as well as our mental health are a normal part of being human. If young students do not learn to identify mental health challenges, they are prone to a cycle of possible anxiety, stress and depression. This cycle can affect a person for their entire life, and sadly their children or peers can be affected. Understanding the importance of mental health at a young age is crucial to breaking the stigma and embracing the reality.

What does the week look like?

C&A is working with 18 area school districts to spread the message of positivity. There are activities and positive messages are for students in elementary, middle and high schools. Each school in the district will be receiving bags filled with posters and positive affirmations for students. Schools will be displaying their mental health champions all throughout the week. C&A is posting mental health champion peer-to-peer videos from Feb. 27 to May 30 on social media channels to highlight all of the school's students. This year’s theme is “Pause.” This week is important for youth to be mindful of their own mental health, and it will be highly encouraged.

Students receive the following resiliency strategies

This year, elementary school students throughout Stark County will be receiving a poster that features elementary students. In addition, each student will be receiving an erasable bookmark. The concept of the bookmarks is for students to write a positive affirmation. Each time a student uses the bookmark, the student can read the affirmation that they wrote. If they would like to create a new message on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, the student can simply erase and replace! Principles will be reading a morning announcement each day with a positive affirmation.


Each middle school student will be receiving a positive message affirmation that may be placed on a computer, tumbler or water bottle. The positive affirmation is from Mental Health week sponsor AultCare, with the simple message, “You Matter.” This important message will help students continue to navigate the challenging middle school years by consistently seeing a simple but powerful message. In addition to the positive affirmation, students will receive a JPEG self-affirmation image emailed to them daily throughout the week or through the Remind app and principles will also be reading a morning announcement each morning with a positive affirmation. Middle school students will see posters hung in their school too.


High school students will be receiving a JPEG self-affirmation that will be sent daily through email and/or the Remind app. Students will also watch the peer-to-peer self-care videos created by students all across the county. This is an important part of the week as students view that each of them shares the same strengths and challenges even though they may not know each other or may be rivals on the athletic field or other school sponsored competitions. Each school will get a chance to listen to their peers discuss how they view the importance of mental health. The high school students will see a unity poster of each school’s mental health champion hanging in their school.


Each student will receive a special treat – The Ohio State University Head Football Coach Ryan Day taped a powerful two-minute message for all students. C&A received a special video from Coach Day discussing the importance of physical and mental health. The students will also view a countywide unity video on mental health starring their peers. If the peer videos were not inspiration enough, Coach Day’s inspiring and powerful message should spark the minds of high school students.


Talking about mental health and understanding how to maintain your own mental health is important for student success and more importantly life success. The mental health champions are student representatives from each school that have been selected to create videos discussing the importance of mental health week and representing their school on a poster.


This week would not be made possible without our community partners – AultCare, Stark Mental Health and Addiction Recovery, State Farm agent Michael Dougan, Q-92 and community mental health partners CommQuest Services and Pathway Caring for Children.


C&A is thrilled our Stark County School Districts view the importance of presenting a week for students to engage in positive mental health. Raising the awareness on this topic can help so many students change their conversations with friends and families.

Dan Mucci is the author of this blog post. Mucci, C&A’s Mission Advancement Director, has more than 20 years of writing experience. To learn more about the services the agency offers, visit www.childandadolescent.org , call 330.433.6075 or email dmucci@childandadolescent.org.

RECENT POSTS

STARK COUNTY SCHOOLS MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS

16 Apr, 2024
The sixth annual Stark County Schools Mental Health Awareness Week is May 6-10 Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health (C&A), CommQuest Services and Pathway Caring for Children will partner to bring positive mental health awareness to more than 53,000 students and 7,000 support and administrative staff in all 18 Stark County School districts.

UNDERSTANDING RACE IN SOCIETY AND THERAPY: CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS’ EXPERIENCES

By Chris Alpert • 16 Nov, 2023
In the film, I’m Not Racist… Am I? as introduced and explored in first of this three-part blog post series, the participants engaged in multiple workshops that address race and racism. Interpersonally, the group of students grapple with their own differences and similarities, which impact the content and emotions they share with each other. There are several moments in the film that demonstrate the clear differences in the participants’ understanding of race. In the first workshop, the students were exposed to the idea that all white people are inherently racist seeing as American society was founded on principles meant to support white people (see more on structural racism here, here, and here for further understanding). Several white students in the film became emotional during that workshop. Most students remained quiet. Following this workshop, a black student and a white student were filmed independently of each other in their own homes and discussed the workshop and what they learned with their families. The white student discussed the differences between structural racism and bigotry with her mother and struggled to identify with the principles taught in the training. The black student stated to his mother how almost everything spoken in that workshop applied to him. The student further discussed his feelings by stating how overt racism is and yet how “subliminal” it is at the same time. How can something be so in your face and yet under your feet simultaneously? I immediately reflected on the dialectic of something being so clear and yet so vague. The film continued to grapple with student differences. At the beginning of the film, one white male student discussed with his mother how he feels that all individuals, if they apply themselves wholeheartedly, have the same chance of success regardless of their skin, gender, sexuality or other demographic factors. As a white man myself, I must confess that when I was in high school, I had the same mindset. How could it be different? Especially when I was reading mythic bootstrap literature in high school classes. Sure, the harder you work the more you deserve, but that statement does not work for all Americans. I had not accounted for racial factors that inhibit the growth of others, not to mention socio-economic factors, nationalities, citizenship status, gender and age. I continued to reflect on these statements and connected them to my experience in high school in New York City. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement responding to the murder of George Floyd, multiple private progressive schools in New York, including the one I went to, suffered scrutiny from students and alumni who identify as black, indigenous people of color (BIPOC). Multiple Instagram accounts surfaced with the handle “BLACK AT [school name].” I read the posts in 2020, and again before writing this post, and remembered feeling horrified knowing these acts of racism, bigotry and microaggressions happened all around me. This was subliminal to me, yet overt to others.

UNDERSTANDING RACE IN SOCIETY AND THERAPY

By Chris Alpert • 01 Nov, 2023
When I first came to Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health (C&A), I was unsure what to expect regarding race and diversity at both the organization and in Ohio. Having grown up in Harlem in New York City and attended graduate school in San Diego, CA, I had heard stereotypes about Ohio, specifically that Ohio was a very white state. At C&A during orientation, we discussed the role of first impressions for clients and discussed how the front desk staff are considered, “the directors of first impressions.” I loved this term. After orientation, I wondered, why we didn’t discuss demographic factors such as race and gender? We generally pick those up upon first impressions and have implicit biases and judgements in those first impressions. It was odd to me that we did not discuss these demographic factors. As the summer and fall progressed, I noticed that there were few discussions about race as it impacts C&A and the kids and families we serve. I noticed the number of white staff at C&A and reflected on my own privilege as a white man who can easily avoid the discussion of race because I do not suffer discrimination on an individual or systemic level. I reflected on my first experiences discussing race in high school. When I was in high school at the Calhoun School, my father received a grant to create a film and workshops that addressed race and racism seen through the eyes of high schoolers in New York City. My dad had completed a training hosted by the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond. This training opened my father’s eyes to his own white privilege and motivated him to teach kids, specifically white kids, about their privilege earlier in life. I first saw the film, I’m Not Racist… Am I? (see more here ), toward the end of high school after it had come out in 2014.

THE DANGERS OF MARIJUANA USE

By Dr. Karita Nussbaum • 20 Oct, 2023
Ohio is at a crossroads once again with marijuana on the ballot next month. The following article is from Every Brain Matters, an organization that believes that the THC in marijuana is a dangerous and addictive drug. Every Brain Matters is a trusted source of educational material based on the latest scientific evidence. One of the major criticisms of expanded marijuana legalization is that it makes the drug more accessible to minors. A brand-new study just published in JAMA Pediatrics shows that it has become a valid concern.

LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE – SOUTHERN NIGHTS: ILLUMINATING HOPE AND MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS FOR THE YOUNGER GENERATION

By Savannah Okray • 11 Sep, 2023
For the last few months, C&A has been diligently preparing for the 18th Annual Let Your Light Shine – Southern Nights presented by The Repository by organizing auction items, printing tickets and using their creativity to make sure that eventgoers feel as though they are walking into an evening in the south, with barrels and lanterns to boot. The committee, led by chair Jen Frey and co-chair Molly Sperling and auction chair Stacy Remark are hard at work, it’s crucial to remember that this event raises awareness and dollars to support the agency’s programs and services amid suicide prevention and awareness month.

GROWING WITH YOUR CHILD AS A PARENT

By Dan Mucci • 30 Aug, 2023
I have grown up as a parent for the last four and half years! As luck would have it, a little more than four and a half years ago, I started at Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health (C&A) in the mission advancement department with my responsibilities being the marketing and development coordinator. Some might say, I did a good job of raising my two kids, who were teenagers at the time. But, boy, if I had known of the services C&A offered and even some of the parenting tools for my toolbox, parenting might have been even better.

WHAT DID YOU DID THIS SUMMER?

By Dr. Karita Nussbaum • 09 Aug, 2023
This summer I attended a Marijuana Prevention conference near Denver, Colorado. I was curious to know what the locals were saying after 10 years of legalization. The speakers included a Denver Police Commander, school resource officer, medical doctor, residential treatment program CEO, deputy from the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), Executive Director of the National Drug and Alcohol Screening Association and others related to educating the community and defending children’s rights. In the audience were parents, professionals and advocates for children from all over the United States. The conference was geared toward the protection of children.

FROM DARKNESS TO DISCOVERY: MY COLLEGE JOURNEY OF SELF-TRANSFORMATION

By Savannah Okray • 24 Jul, 2023
When I arrived on campus, I tried to immerse myself in college culture. I joined a sorority, the speech and debate team, and two other clubs which were extensive time commitments, factoring in no time to relax or focus on bettering my mental health. This lack of attention to my mentality, combined with my low self-esteem that prevented me from making friends led me down a dark hole in which some days I thought it would be better if I wasn’t here. About four weeks into school (at Ohio University), I realized that I had to do something, as I knew it was not safe for me to continue down the road I had been on. From there I moved home and attended an inpatient treatment center where I worked with counselors for five hours a day, learning coping skills and other ways in which I could help mend my suffering mental health. Through the lessons I learned I was able to get the skill set and help I needed and returned to school three weeks later.

THIS IS WHY WE CELEBATE

By Mary Kreitz • 19 Jun, 2023
This time of year there are a lot of celebrations happening in our communities – Memorial Day, Pride Festivals, Juneteenth celebrations, 4th of July and many more. These events aren’t just frivolous excuses to have parties, backyard barbecues or festivals. They are important cultural and civic events we need these celebrations.
More Posts
Share by: