Mental Health Mentality

This is the first in a three-part series examining mental health awareness and what changes are in progress in the Shelby County School System as well as the surrounding community.

Before Madison Bearden graduated from Chelsea High School in May 2018, she worked to bring what she said was a much-needed outreach program to Chelsea High School  — a mental health awareness campaign. 

“I realized that there’s not a lot of education about mental health in Chelsea High School, let alone the Shelby County School System,” said Bearden, who will study psychology at UAB this fall. “In my sociology and psychology classes, we would barely cover some mental health disorders, and I noticed that there really is a need to talk about some of these things since there is such a stigma.”

Bearden, who has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), said she has felt stigmatized at school because of the disorder, which makes it difficult for her to focus and sometimes takes her longer to complete tasks.

During her lunch period at Chelsea High School, Bearden said she and her friends would talk about their mental health disorders and share stories with each other about day-to-day struggles they often didn’t get the opportunity to talk about in school. 

Bearden learned how it affected their lives and how sometimes they couldn’t “find the strength and willpower to get up out of bed and go to school,” or other times had trouble finding the courage to talk to classmates, teachers and parents because of the stigma associated with mental health.

According to data by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), one in five children ages 13 to 18 have, or will have, a serious mental illness. 

“[I want students] to be able to know that it’s okay being able to talk about having a mental health disorder — it’s perfectly fine, and it’s not something you should be ashamed of, and you’re not going through your battle alone,” Bearden said. 

During Mental Health Awareness Week: Friends Helping Friends in February, Bearden teamed up with several other Chelsea High School peer helpers to visit classrooms during study hall. They discussed different health disorders including depression, anxiety, ADHD and bipolar disorder. 

“I learned that some of my classmates openly talked about their experiences and gave advice,” she said, adding that some mentioned coping and grounding methods they used to deal with their mental health.

At the end of the week, a mental health fair was held in the school lobby with booths from American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), Children’s of Alabama, Birmingham Crisis Center and National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). 

At the mental health fair, guest speaker and AFSP Alabama Chapter Public Policy Chair Tracie Blackmon rolled out “Seize the Awkward” — a campaign that encourages talking to friends about mental health stigma through humorous and informational videos by well-known YouTubers — for the first time in the state of Alabama. 

Blackmon said she was thrilled when Bearden reached out to AFSP to do the 30-minute presentation on the final day of the mental health week. She said her only complaint was the event wasn’t mandatory, and only about 200 of the school’s 1,200 students came to it.

Blackmon said the Seize the Awkward campaign was well-received in the school, and she would like to introduce it to the other high schools in Shelby County. 

The website, seizetheawkward.org, includes conversation starters, video stories on how checking in with friends can make a difference, warning signs and what to do after a conversation on mental health.

According to NIMH, friends and family are often the first to recognize warning signs of suicide or distress in mental health.

Shelby County Community Education and Public Relations Supervisor Cindy Warner said that every school, including Chelsea High School, does mental health education and lessons with kids “all year long with the various resources we already have available,” and they plan to keep adding more in the upcoming school year.

The mental health awareness week was Bearden’s project for her Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest award a Girl Scout can earn. As part of the award process, Bearden was required to measure the impact of the project, she said, so her principal posted a form on Google Classroom asking for people’s responses on the initiative.

Chelsea High School Principal Wayne Trucks said in an emailed statement, “We enjoyed the project because it presented valid information about an important topic. Madison did a great job of presenting a variety of issues and options for students and staff. She tried to help all students in a meaningful way and that is not always easy.”

Less than 20 percent of children and adolescents receive needed treatment for mental health problems, according 2017 data from MentalHealth.gov, so friends and loved ones can make a difference in the lives of people with mental health problems through sharing access to mental health services and showing support. 

“I got a lot of [student responses] that were saying how grateful and thankful they were for this project and how a lot of them are actually getting help now or are able to talk to their friends about it and everything, and they were more prepared to help others go through their battles,” Bearden said.

In total, Bearden said more than 500 people participated in either the fair or the auditorium presentation. She said it was a big step to be able to talk to more people about mental health.

Bearden said while she was researching mental health awareness in the school system, she found no record of anything else similar being done in the SCS.

“We have health classes in high school. I think it would be great to spend an entire week talking about mental health. It’s not just suicide — it’s mental health in general,” Blackmon said. “I think there are a lot of things we could be doing, maybe a mental health awareness month.”

After she spoke at Chelsea High School, Blackmon said students spoke with her about situations they’d encountered with friends struggling with suicidal thoughts and mental illness, as well as their experiences contacting lifeline numbers when they felt they had nowhere else to go.

“People are just actually starting to realize we should do something about it. The kids are actually the ones who want to do something about it which is amazing because that is great group of people to start,” Blackmon said. 

Student Services Supervisor Melissa Youngblood said the SCS system has spent the last year developing a new mental health and awareness campaign, Shelby County Schools Care, which will involve every student.

“We really wanted to give a lot of thought and work to it because we have activities that are going to be geared toward each of our stakeholders. So with this enormous task, we felt like we needed to do a good job of it on the front end,” she said. 

Bearden said it made her excited to hear that SCS is launching a new mental health campaign next year. She thinks it will make a difference.

“Knowing that there’s an outlet for them to go to to get information at and talk about things, it’d be perfect,” she said. 

She hopes SCS will spend time covering suicide prevention and awareness, depression and anxiety, in addition to discussing the stigma surrounding mental health. Bearden also said she’d like to see “a safe place in schools” for students to go to talk about what’s going on mental-health wise, in addition to “more education on all these different mental health disorders.” She suggested health class might be a good avenue. 

Warner said the new campaign is multi-leveled and comprehensive, and the school system plans to pull resources from various areas, and not just one organization.

“It’s not necessarily just going to be a partnership with one entity, it is several entities,” Warner said. “We feel like the more resources, the better.”

Bearden said she will be back at Chelsea High School in 2019 to help out with the second year of Mental Health Awareness Week: Friends Helping Friends, which will be a sustained project in SCS. Warner said in addition to launching Shelby County Schools Care next year, they will continue fulfilling the requirements of the Jason Flatt Act, and annually showing the “More Than Sad” videos, a resource they purchased from AFSP.

“This whole mental health campaign that we are about to launch is also going to be the answer that hopefully some of these community members are looking for,” Warner said. 

AFSP Alabama Chapter Board Chair Marissa Grayson said they’ve systemically had an important relationship with SCS for a long time, and appreciate the work they do each year implementing suicide prevention training and showing informational videos to students.

“We have tried even harder in the past year to figure out how we can support one another given each of our expertise and resources,” Grayson said. 

Youngblood and Warner said the school system’s mental health campaign will be launched in the upcoming school year, and they haven’t decided a definite date. 

Mental Health Mentality is the first installment in a three part series. In the August issue of 280 Living, part two of the series will look at the program SCS will have in place in the 2018-19 school year.

For more information about getting help for mental illness, go to nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help.

Jason Flatt Act

Former Gov. Robert Bentley signed the Jason Flatt Act on May 10, 2016, which requires each school system to adopt a policy on student suicide prevention. This policy must be developed with school and community stakeholders, school-employed mental health professionals and suicide prevention experts, as stated in the act, and requires “all educators in the state complete two hours of youth suicide awareness and prevention training each year in order to be able to be licensed to teach.” 

Shelby County Community Education and Public Relations Supervisor Cindy Warner said they have complied with the law each year.

‘More Than Sad’

Warner also said they show some of the “More Than Sad” videos each year to students, which cover mental health and suicide prevention for youths. 

Want to watch one of the “More Than Sad” video played in Shelby County School Systems? Go to vimeo.com/113932733. Learn more at afsp.org/our-work/education/more-than-sad.

Additional Services

Teen Link text services: Teens can text 205-382-5465 and talk to trained counselors about anything. The text messages will be kept confidential.

Crisis Lines: Locals can call the Birmingham Crisis Line at 205-323-7778 to talk on the phone with a trained counselor 24/7. If the line is busy, call the toll free National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

Help finding treatment: Go to findtreatment.samhsa.gov to find support groups and local counselors and psychiatrists in your area.