Not without us if it’s about us
West students and staff become certified in youth mental health first aid
A stress ball was given to each table while training. Students passed the stress ball to one another as they shared stresses in their own life and over the course of the week.
October 23, 2018
Students and teachers from West trained in unison as they received their youth mental health first aid certifications on Thursday, Oct. 18 at the Davenport Community School’s Achievement Service Center.
The participants attended an eight-hour training session led by Project Aware Mental Health Grant Manager Farrah Roberts and Learning Support Specialist Ellen Reilly, both from the Davenport Community School District. The course provides an action plan on how to respond to a young person who is potentially having a mental health crisis.
“We need to train educators because they work with youth all day long. Sometimes their perceptions of what is really happening [with students’ mental health] are a little mixed-up or uninformed. I think sometimes it’s a generation gap, or other times it’s just a lack of awareness or understanding,” Reilly said. “And also knowing that it’s not all that hard to provide support to someone. We are teaching adults how they can support youth.”
The certification is typically only available for adults, however, four of West’s Youth Voice Ambassadors, seniors Dani Reitz, Alexa Christiansen, and Zakhary Keel, and sophomore Hayley Carriker amended this routine. This makes the group of students four of fourteen students in the school district to have undergone this type of training.
The eight teachers attending the training session were unaware that students were going to be present and learning by their side. Many talking points were collaboratively discussed, which assisted in bridging the gap between the customary student-teacher correspondence. Math teacher Jessica Mouchka explains the significance of bringing youth into the conversation.
“When I was growing up, and it wasn’t even that long ago, you didn’t really talk about [mental health]. Even in high school, you didn’t talk about it,” Mouchka said. “Now this generation [of high school students] is over the ‘we can’t talk about it’ phase. It’s applicable to so many different topics too.”
Carriker speaks this truth described by Mouchka. Discussing mental health and learning about the proper steps on how to address complex situations is what Carriker finds most valuable.
“Mental health is a topic that everyone should be comfortable with discussing. It’s always important to support one another and know what to do and how to approach certain situations,” Carriker said.
Roberts brings attention to the fact that although courses work to educate people and chip away at the mental health stigma, the stigma itself is still very real.
“Mental illness and mental health are still not taken as seriously as they should be. There is a shift in mindset that is slowly happening that I wish would happen quicker, in that it is just as important to take care of students’ emotional and social health as it is as their academic needs,” Roberts said. “It is my goal to bring on more social and emotional learning throughout the district; staff and students.”
Reilly specifies that mental illness is often ignored in its symptoms and early warning signs. Bringing about awareness and shaping an environment where both students and teachers are cognizant of emotional and social health is her primary goal. Ideally she wishes that everyone would take the right steps to assist youth.
“I do think that there is a level of accountability with mental health as well, in that it’s really easy for us to just look away, and not do anything. But it’s tacit consent. Not doing anything is still doing something,” Reilly said.
For more information about West’s Youth Voice Ambassadors or Youth Mental Health First Aid, contact Farrah Roberts of DCSD at [email protected].
