Promoting Mental Health Awareness: Reducing Stigma and Supporting Children's Wellbeing

Abstract

A typical U.S. student spends 8,884 hours over nine years to complete primary and lower secondary education. That's nearly 1,300 hours - more than a full school year - more than the average for other countries in the report (Sparks, 2019, para. 4). As we know, children spend a significant amount of time in schools. With this, there needs to be a focus on incorporating mental health support through an evidence based curriculum that supports families, students, and staff members. For the purpose of this capstone, we have designed an intervention that describes an educational curriculum that targets mental health among school-aged children and aims to reduce stigma around mental health and promote awareness. Individual units were developed for students, families, and school staff, addressing similar and different aspects depending upon which population is being targeted The program will include the hiring of two facilitators, and these facilitators will teach the course over a span of 10 weeks. The facilitators will present at a school assembly where they will give a brief overview of the curriculum and talk about the importance of having an open conversation about mental health in schools. For students, participation in the curriculum will be optional and interest based. The curriculum will be taught in small-group settings with one-on-one sessions being offered on an as-needed basis depending on the level of support needed. A licensed social worker will be hired to provide these one-on-one sessions.