Posted by Communications Staff on 5/6/2022
SPS students are doing their part when it comes to addressing the mental health of themselves and their peers. At both Lewis & Clark and North Central high schools, student-led clubs are tackling the issue in a variety of ways.
In October, LC senior Will Merritt and his classmates created the Uplift Club, which promotes positive mental health within the LC community.
“It's always been kind of a passion of mine,” Merritt said of mental health advocacy. “It's something that isn’t talked about enough in our schools and something that’s not talked about enough within groups of friends.”
To get the conversation started, the Uplift Club handed out 200 Airheads candies to attendees of the club’s first meeting. Students were asked to find someone in the school they’d never spoken with and give them an Airhead. It was an opportunity to have a positive interaction with someone new and invite them to the next Uplift Club meeting.
The Uplift Club finds unique topics that have an impact on mental health. For example, the club discussed how a student’s sleep habits impact anxiety and depression. Merritt and his classmates make sure these discussions include an element of fun, so during the sleep discussion, students played Pictionary related to the lesson.
The club also created five-minute videos shown once a week during the school’s advisory periods that focus on a different aspect of mental health, like gaslighting, bullying and more.
“If we can make an impact in one person's life from any of our events, any of our activities, in any of our meetings, then it's worth it,” Merritt said. “And I believe that the feedback I've heard from other students and teachers and is that our goal is always to make an impact in one person's life.”
North Central students created the Wellness Club five years ago, which current students continue to lead. The COVID-19 pandemic led to virtual activities and meetings, but once students came back to in-person learning in the spring of 2021, the Wellness Club was there to greet them.
“We created welcome back bags and continued certain activities for youth to get involved in our school and educate them about their own personal wellness and how they can take care of themselves and each other,” said senior Alexis Schallock, one of the club’s leaders.
The welcome back idea was something Schallock and her fellow Wellness Club leader, senior Jacob Gannon, enjoyed when they were new to NC.
“The idea was to get the freshman and sophomores and especially the new seventh graders in our IST program reinvigorated in the community and make them feel at home like we had when we first came to the school,” he said.
NC’s Wellness Club wants students to know they’re not alone in whatever it is they’re dealing with. In the fall, students were asked to fill out forms indicating whether they’d been impacted by drug or alcohol addiction. The anonymous answers were put on red brick images and displayed at the school and was known as the Red Brick Wall Activity.
“It was more of a symbol of solidarity that we put down in the commons area,” Gannon said. “People could walk by and see that they’re not alone in facing these issues.”
Since the pandemic put mental health at the forefront, both Schallock and Gannon have seen more people talk more candidly about the issues impacting their lives.
“I think coming out of the pandemic and the struggles we’ve all faced together, students and faculty in general are more open to discussing these issues that we’ve experienced and also that we can be there for each other,” Schallock said.
But there’s more to be done.
“We’ve made some progress toward being open to talking about it, but we’re still lacking a lot of the methods and training to teach people how to deal with these issues and feel safe knowing that everybody is dealing with them,” Gannon said. “I still think we need more openness about talking about it from the entire community.”
Students like Merritt at LC and Schallock and Gannon at NC are proof that students have a major role in leading the way for mental health awareness in Spokane Public Schools.
