ICT Teen Council Meeting Recap September 17th, 2024
For our second teen council meeting of the 2024-2025 school year, our Teen Council members started off by reflecting on Zero Reasons Why’s Three Pillars:
- Build community support
- Remove the stigma
- Commit to education
We then reviewed Mental Health America’s State Report that was released in July. Here’s a summary of what we learned:
- In their 2023 report, Mental Health America ranked the state of Kansas at #51 (out of 51. 50 states + Washington D.C.) in terms of low access to mental health care and high rates of reported mental illness. In 2024, Mental Health America ranked Kansas at #22 out of 51, which is a huge improvement!
- Many believe that the improvement can be linked to the Senate Substitute for House Bill 2208 signed by Governor Laura Kelly, which established a new model for providing behavioral health services in Kansas— the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic.
- We learned about the benefits of the CCBHC model and how it has increased access to mental healthcare in the state of Kansas.
After reviewing the report, we broke out into a storytelling icebreaker. Teens were sorted into pairs to interview each other with the following questions:
- Prompt #1: Why are you passionate about mental health and suicide prevention?
- Prompt #2: What stigmas have you heard surrounding mental health? Why is it important to remove the stigma?
- Prompt #3: What do you think schools or communities can do to better support teen mental health?
- Prompt #4: What advice or encouragement would you give to someone who might be struggling?
Once we were done interviewing each other, we shared our answers to the group:
Prompt #1: Why are you passionate about mental health and suicide prevention?
- When you struggle with something yourself, you don’t want to see others go through the same thing.
Prompt #2: What stigmas have you heard surrounding mental health? Why is it important to remove the stigma?
- Stigma is now over-normalized. People are starting to see it as no big deal or they make jokes about mental illness or suicide.
- People compete with each other on who has it worse.
- People are picky about getting involved.
- People in sports face a lot of stigma.
- ‘Men are weak’ if they talk about their mental health.
- Generational conversations are important and hard to have due to different life experiences.
Prompt #3: What do you think schools or communities can do to better support teen mental health?
- Daily positive message in the school announcements.
- Start middle school clubs to help teach young teens best mental health practices while they’re young.
Prompt #4: What advice or encouragement would you give to someone who might be struggling?
- Bettering your mental health will take time.
- Know who the trusted friends and adults in your life are.
- Never be afraid to seek out help.
We spent the rest of the meeting talking about our upcoming Community Mental Health Forum that will be held on October 22nd from 6:00-7:30 pm. The topic for this forum will focus on the impact of social media and technology on teen mental health and will be held at the Cargill Learning Center Auditorium. The event is free, but we ask that you RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/lets-talk-a-community-mental-health-forum-tickets-1022797814797.
As we wrapped up, we talked about our assignments to complete before the next teen council meeting:
- Schedule an in-school event!
- Spread the word about the community forum!
- Invite a friend to the next meeting!