New to Apollo High School this year is a Teen Empowerment group based on Erika’s Lighthouse, a program with resources for schools to provide mental health information via classroom instruction, peer-led group activities, staff development and community connections. Teen empowerment has also rolled out to North and South Junior High Schools and Katherine Johnson Education Center this year and is in the beginning stages at Tech High School, McKinley-ALC and Kennedy Community School as well.
Thus far, all schools are working to fight the stigma around mental health, to ensure students know there are people to talk to, and to understand that it’s okay to ask for help.
“Initially, we started looking for a curriculum that we could use to add more mental health awareness to our health classes,” explains Shereen Anderson, triage therapist and Teen Empowerment advisor. “We looked for quite a long time for anything that would most represent students like the population we have in St. Cloud. It took a while, and we landed on Erika’s Lighthouse.”
Erika’s Lighthouse was introduced to St. Cloud Area School District 742 a few years ago in the health classes at Apollo and Tech. Last year, it was introduced to North and South. This year, peer groups were added to almost all secondary sites. In addition, two different sessions were provided during a recent professional development training as well.
Once the curriculum was up and running and support staff were in place, Apollo was able to move to the next phase which was adding a peer-led group called Teen Empowerment.
“Some Apollo students approached one of the guidance counselors, Jessica Glieden, and said, ‘We’ve got to do something to let kids know who they can talk to because there are too many kids struggling,'” shares Anderson. “So, then that counselor [Glieden] approached me and asked, ‘What can we do?'”
Anderson met with the first group of interested students. She was happy to have a dozen students attend. Students began to formulate a plan of action to meet twice a month and discuss campaigns to create awareness around mental health. They had a booth at Open House with information for students about mental health and had a sign-up sheet for students to become involved. Teen Empowerment students welcomed classmates back to school on the first day with chalk messages on sidewalks and positive message posters in the bathrooms. The group has ordered t-shirts that read, “Fight the Stigma” and have opened up the t-shirt orders to the general public.
“During Homecoming Week, we sold green bandanas … kids can wear one on their backpack and it represents that they are a safe person to talk to, especially if someone needs help. They’ll get you to where you need to be.”
The main message Teen Empowerment wants to share is that everyone has mental health. It’s no different than physical health. Mental health ebbs and flows from good to bad just like physical health.
“We just really want to normalize mental health,” says Anderson. “[We] want to make it one of those things people talk about. Instead of having it be an illness, be an awareness.”
In 2023, all of the Teen Empowerment groups will partner with Mindology for a mental health awareness walk in the spring. Teen Empowerment received a LEAF (Local Education and Activities Foundation) grant to help fund some of the activities that the groups plan to do to spread the word about mental health. Together with community support, Teen Empowerment students hope to fight the stigma surrounding mental health.
What an exciting example of student voice influencing action!
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