Wellness Highlight for the Year

Wellness Highlight for the Year

This year, our school has put a significant effort into raising awareness around the general wellness of our school community. One way that we are doing this is through our Headstrong Team. Headstrong is a mental health awareness initiative put on by the Mental Health Commission of Canada. This initiative allowed a few of our grade 9 students to participate in a summit day back in the fall where they heard stories from many people who have struggled with their mental health, learned about stigma related to mental health and ultimately got to collaborate and plan ways they can bring what they learned back to our school so we can work together to create a more compassionate and aware community so that students can feel safe to be brave and reach out for support when needed.

Two of the initiatives that the Headstrong team took on this year was creating bulletin boards to raise awareness. First, they created a “Mental Health Support and Resource” bulletin board. This board has lots of information about where to go for help when needed. It includes resources such as Kids Help Phone, Connecteen, the Distress Centre, resources within the school for support, and suggestions for safe adults that youth can talk to. This board has cards and QR codes with all the info that students could need which were created by our Headstrong team. Come check out this awesome board up in the jr. high wing!

The team has also been working on a whole school participation board focussed on breaking the stigma around mental health, and instead focussing on encouraging messages to “speak life” to each other within our school community. The really cool part about this project is that the Headstrong team has been going to each class in the school to do a presentation for our students about what mental health is, what stigma is, and how we can be a more compassionate and caring community together. At the end of each presentation, all students were given sticky notes to write kind and encouraging messages that have been added to the bulletin board. It is so cool to see all of the amazing and thoughtful notes our students have written! This board is located near the big gym, in the hallway by the stairwell. Come take a look!

Headstrong is an initiative that we are excited about and will continue in the years to come! Students have the opportunity to participate in the Headstrong program when they are in grade 9, so keep an eye out in the upcoming years for more projects from future teams, or your chance to participate and be a part of the Headstrong Team.

I want to say a BIG THANK YOU to our amazing students who participated this year. Zara, Margaretha, Cailyn, Dami, Avery and Tije, it has been so much fun going on this journey with you all and witnessing how you have led our school to more awareness and kindness. Thank you for all of the hard work and extra hours you put into the projects around the school. You have all done such a great job in bringing change to our school this year! -Mrs. Blake :)