Mental Health is a very important subject to learn about, Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood. DaNiya Page asked the staff at MPHS some questions about Mental Health and this is how it went.
Karen Kimball shares that “Mental health is how you see yourself and how you interpret the world.” When asked “How does our school help promote Mental health?” she replied, “We have numerous counselors: 6 counselors. We train staff using Project Aware and it trains us to deal with students with trauma” (PCR). She believes our school promotes Mental Health because “our job is to teach y’all and if you’re not mentally healthy, you won’t be able to learn.” Some ways Kimball de-stresses is “by reading, snuggling my cats, and hanging out with my chickens.”
Another Staffer Kristen Willey shares, “Our school uses the Oil Spill to share lessons from our counselors. We also use the strategies that we learned during our Capturing.” “Students are coming to us with a lot of trauma. Even if raising awareness helps one person, that is important.” When asked how she de-stresses she says, “I will try to make a list. When I check things off of the list, I feel productive and it helps me not feel overwhelmed.” The question is how do you manage a student venting? She answered “In a safe, private space, I provide them the tools to vent. If I cannot help a student de-escalate, I call the experts in the building to assist. We work in a big team.” She shares “Mental Health is extremely important to me. It has changed the way that I have taught, parented, and supported colleagues.”
Shannon Bartell also answers the questions by saying “Mental health includes my emotional and psychological well-being. I need to take care of myself in order to be available for everyone else in my life.” When asked how our school promotes Mental Health she answered “At MPHS we include Mental health awareness into our curriculum, offer support (especially in the guidance office and our counselors), and we raise awareness.” She believes “We need to promote Mental health more because mentally healthy students come to school ready to learn, join extra-curricular activities, and make connections with their peers!” During a stressful time Shannon Bartell says she “Exercise. Working out, lifting weights, playing tennis, running, walking are all examples of ways that I de-stress.” When a student is venting she “Actively listens. I then determine what their needs are and help them solve the problem.” Lastly she states “Mental health is very important because it affects the way we think and feel and it also affects our decision-making skills”.
We are now drawing things to close up the article but we cannot forget a student’s point of view. As a student I feel our mental health is affected by how we perceive things, we could negatively view things and make ourselves stress more than we need. We are also held to a standard by our parents to do well in school and in times when we are stressed we may lose motivation for schoolwork which causes a decline in our effort. The staff at MPHS notice that and help make a difference because they want us to succeed. And it is important to know that. Thank you for reading, have a wonderful rest of your day.
