‘Check In’: C-H hosts mental health awareness fair
Karen Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Chartiers-Houston High School students visited a booth called “It Takes a Village” at the school’s mental health wellness fair, “Check In,” on Tuesday. The booth addressed building social networks and a sense of connection, and acknowledging that getting involved in your community can be good for mental health.
Karen Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Chartiers-Houston High School students man the “Uplift” booth at “Check In,” a mental health awareness event held to share mental health resources and strategies for coping with mental health issues. At the booth, students assembled “Uplift” kits, filled with items to promote self-care and wellness.
Karen Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Students at Chartiers-Houston High School’s Check-In fair fill out what they are grateful for at one of the fair’s mental health awareness booths on Tuesday. The mental health program is a K-12 version of the Jordan Porco Foundation’s Fresh Check Day, a program for colleges and universities that addresses mental health awareness.
Karen Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Chartiers-Houston High School students visit a booth at the school’s Check In mental health wellness fair held Tuesday where they were wrote the name of something they were grateful for and placed it on a tree.
Karen Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Check In, a mental health wellness fair held at Chartiers-Houston High School on Tuesday offered a variety of resources and strategies for improving mental health, including eating healthy foods.
There was no shortage of activities available to students at Chartiers-Houston High School’s “Check In” mental health wellness fair held Tuesday.
The event transformed the gymnasium into an expo-like atmosphere with fun interactive booths, connections to mental health services, free food, and plenty of swag.
Over the course of the day, students rotated through seven interactive booths where they could build self-care coping kits that included stress balls, bubbles, and inspirational quotes; “trash” their insecurities by writing one down, throwing it in a trash can, and then writing a positive message on a Post-It Note and sticking it on a mirror; paint their hands and add their handprint to a handprint collage, and more.
They snacked on hot pretzels, cookies, and fruit while checking out resources for mental health organizations posted throughout the gym.
On one wall, students wrote on a leaf-shaped sticky note things they were grateful for – family, friends, dogs, money – and placed it on a hand-drawn tree.
“Check In” is a K-12 version of Fresh Check, the Jordan Porco Foundation’s program for colleges and universities that aims to help students become more comfortable talking about mental health, increase their awareness of mental health resources and services available, and reduce the stigma around mental health that often keeps teens from seeking help.
The fair was hosted by Chartiers-Houston’s Student Assistance Program team, and the student-run booths were sponsored by high school clubs and community organizations.
Teen mental health, particularly among teenage girls, is in a crisis, according to results from a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey and other studies. For example, half of teen girls – 57% – report they feel “persistently sad or hopeless.”
In the annual “State of Education” report released in February by the Pennsylvania School Board Association, 81% of superintendents said that inside the classroom, the greatest challenge is addressing students’ social and emotional issues, which were made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was the third straight year that administrators viewed students’ mental health as the biggest instructional challenge.
“Mental health is our big concern, and anything we can do to engage and raise awareness for students is helpful, especially since the pandemic,” said guidance counselor Sean McNally. “Our focus has been not just on academics, but also to make this feel like a place where you’re going to get all your needs met as much as we can possibly meet them for everybody. That’s social, emotional, educational, everything. Right now if you don’t take care of the stuff on the emotional side and give kids a sense that this is a safe place to be and they’re going to get what they need, then it’s hard to get them a seat in the classroom to move forward.”
The Jordan Porco Foundation was founded in 2011 by a Connecticut couple, Ernie and Marisa Porco, shortly after they lost their son, Jordan, to suicide when he was a freshman in college.
Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among people 15 to 24 in the United States. Nearly 20% of high school students report serious thoughts of suicide and 9% have made an attempt to take their lives, according to National Alliance on Mental Illness.
“Mental health is one of those things that is more hush-hush, especially with teens. I think (the fair) is a really cool thing for them, to show them that it is OK to open up and talk about how they feel,” said C-H outreach counselor Meagan Moore, who was stationed at the “Younique” booth that promoted self-acceptance and positive body image. “Even if it’s a small message that they take away from this, if they can walk away taking something positive from one booth, that’s significant.”
Booths also were manned by representatives from Washington Drug and Alcohol Commission and the Western Pennsylvania chapter of American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
AFSP area director Jesse Putkoski said it’s important for schools to hold events like “Check In” to have conversations about mental health and provide strategies and resources for children.
“Being at an event like this, being able to talk about how important mental health is and how we need to take care of it in the same way that we take care of our physical health, is significant,” said Putkoski. “Students need to learn to have those conversations, and having those conversations actually does create hope and helps save lives. Having programs like this actually creates that comfort level and decreases the stigma surrounding talking about mental health and suicide prevention, and it gets those conversations started and it gets people the help they need.”