After my vague post about a shift in focus, I wanted to elaborate and lay out some more concrete plans I have for myself in December. I will be devoting December to researching the rise of a mental wellness culture in colleges (since the movement is still relatively new in high schools). Specifically I will be researching the rise of "Wellness Centers" that encompass many different types of health. I'd also like to see what elements of such a center make it succesful. I also plan of visiting a local college, such as RPI or Union, to visit their wellness centers for inspiration. Some of my main research questions will be: What types of layout are condusive to feeling private enoguh to talk about mental wellness, but also inviting enough to encourage participation in this conversation? What are the most popular sorts of activites in wellness centers? How can a center encourage good mental health once a person leaves the center? How can a center encourage people to independetly learn about mental health and mental illnesses?
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After meeting with Ms. Moore two times this month, per her advice I've found a slightly different way in which I can develop a mental health curriculum, or now what I think is more accuretaly called a mental wellness program and environment.
In this blog post I can only speak about the development in vague terms because it is still under wraps at school. In general, I will be focusing more on researching and developing ways in which Emma Willard can create an environment to ensure mental wellness. Ms. Moore and I agreed that attemtping to squeeze in more mental health education into the sophomore health class presented too many conflicts with the other curriculum in the health class. In my mind, at least 2 weels (4 classes+homework)should have been devoted to mental illness, while currently it is only 2-3 classes. Although I will be interested to see what happens when the Mental Health Education in Schools bill goes into effect in 2018! That all being said, I may still try to expand the curriculum in a more doable way; I read an amazing book about mental illness over break called Challenger Deep (recommended by Ms. A), which dismantled a lot of the myths surrodning mental illness and also develed into stigma and self-stigma. It would be wonderful if every sophomore had it as summer reading for the class... and if not, perhaps I could run a book club discussion on it during spring semester. A couple weeks ago I had a conversation with Ms. Moore about how to ensure the mental wellness of Emma students. We spoke about how to get students to incorporate mindfulness into their daily routines, and also spoke about how it might be possible help educate students about mental wellness in health classes. She is currently going in to the sophomore health class to give students statistics about mental illness, and I think it would be very good to include information about the resources available on campus for students.
We have a tentative plan to meet again to discuss how I could get involved in the process of perhaps updating the mental health curriculum, and I have asked Ms. Moore if she would like to be my mentor as well. I will update my blog with news about this! The main update to my Signature project this October is my shift of focus from expanding the club to other schools to instead developing a mental health curriculum for high school health classes. While this is still in the tentative planning stage, I think this change will allow my project to have a more long-lasting impact.
There were also a few roadblocks that I faced that also affected my decision to change this focus. I tried to reach the coordinator of the student leadership conference at the Rensselaer by email and phone multiple times, but did not get a response. This was going to be my main method by which to recruit members of other schools to start their own branches of the club. I could have gone back through the Rensselaer school district to then have the Superintendent's office call the coordinator, but given my enthusiasm for the alternative plan for my Signature project (and my lack of time because of college applications), I decided to go with my second plan. This is an especially timely given that the Mental Health Education in Schools bill, signed by Governor Cuomo in October, will require schools to start teaching mental health in the currently mandatory health class starting in 2018. I'm hoping that maybe this could help me encourage Emma Willard to also adopt a more comprehensive mental health curriculum (which ideally could become part of my Signature. More to come later!) |
Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame us all. -Bill Clinton
Katherine WallaceEmma Willard Class of 2017. Archives
May 2017
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