Mental Health Awareness

Natalia Perez

Mental Health awareness at Whitney Young is something that tends to be breezed over. The school has disagreement issues when it comes to what students have to say about the environment of our school verses what the staff thinks about the environment of our school.

We asked students some questions about the mental health at our school such as- “By being in school, does your mental health worsen?”, “Do you think there’s a good support system for mental health in the school?”, “What would you like the school to know in order to promote mental health awareness?”, “What is an issue in the school that you causes the lack of mental health support?”, “How does school impact your mental health? Does it negatively affect it?”, and “What do you want to tell your peers?” Senior class President Rebecca Reid ‘19 affirmed, “We as students need to make sure to get as much sleep as possible so we don’t become tired and stressed.” This strikes up the question of how is this possible if we get an insane amount of work every night from every one of our teachers? Allie Swain ‘20 inserted, “Prioritizing our time is key but this can be very difficult to do with everything that us students have going on in our lives.”

Sometimes the most important thing comes down to how we feel. If we are at our breaking point and instead of doing that math assignment you decide to take a deep breath and go into downward dog to get ahold of yourself- do it. The President of Hearts Out for Mental Health Sophie Sanchez ‘19 said, “Know that you are not alone no matter how you might feel. There are people who will support you and never be afraid to reach out.” However you might feel about mental health- it is clear that we must address how Whitney Young addresses it.