This group of young people volunteered their own time to meet with school staff and other professionals after school hours to share their own experiences and stories about mental health difficulties. They were given autonomy to plan and decide what they wanted to do and delivered the project on their own - with very minimal support from staff. The young people were incredibly honest, courageous and inspiring when meeting with large groups of professionals to discuss the importance of understanding mental health in schools and giving advice about how to best support other students.
This group of young people volunteered their own time to meet with school staff and other professionals after school hours to share their own experiences and stories about mental health difficulties.
They were given autonomy to plan and decide what they wanted to do and delivered the project on their own – with very minimal support from staff. The young people were incredibly honest, courageous and inspiring when meeting with large groups of professionals to discuss the importance of understanding mental health in schools and giving advice about how to best support other students.
By doing this, the young people demonstrated their passion for ensuring that the stigma around mental health is reduced and allowed school staff to see things from another perspective and to understand how difficult life can be as a teenager with mental health difficulties.
The young people met with various high schools and colleges in the area and – despite their own mental health difficulties including significant social anxiety and depression – were incredibly brave and overcame their difficulties in order to deliver an incredible project.
The group have encouraged school staff to think about mental health in young people in a different way. Some of the feedback received were – “I have learnt to treat each illness as an individual illness”, “I will now pay more attention to getting to know individuals and not pigeon hole them”, “I have learnt about the importance of increasing education about mental health and doing this earlier on in school”, “I have learnt how to talk about mental health with young people”. As a direct result of their work, several of the schools held health and wellbeing assemblies, started up mental health projects in school and changed their practice with regards to mental health.
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I am incredibly proud of these young people’s achievements. It has been incredibly inspirational to see them take pride in talking about mental health and to demonstrate such skills and bravery in delivering this project. I think that it is difficult for any young person to do this, let alone one who is struggling with mental health difficulties. I know, for a fact, that the project has had a positive impact on our service, as well as the schools and colleges that they have spoken to.
