Student-led campaign fights the stigma against mental illness

Sophomores at Compass Academy are taking their study of mental illness to a whole new level by creating an entire awareness campaign as part of a class project.

“We really wanted to work with the kids to (help them) understand that having a mental disorder is no different than having any other physical disorder, and should be taken care of,” said Megan Walker, a social studies facilitator/teacher at Compass Academy. “We know that there’s a good chance that half of our students, or their loved ones, will suffer some kind of mental health crisis at any given point in their life. We wanted them to know what to look for, and where to go, should they need the assistance.”

To start the project, students had to first learn about mental illness, and learned that it is more common than often thought.

“We had a speaker come to class, Mr. Molino, a behavioral interventionist, and he asked everyone in our class who had been affected by someone with a mental illness,” said Jacob Rich, a student leader in the project. “Every single person in our class raised their hand.”

“It became more real to me. I didn’t realize that it was something that was physically happening, and that it was as big as a problem as it is,” said Samantha Schetromph, a student lead in the campaign.

The awareness campaign not only helps students learn about mental illness, but lets people living in the community know there’s help available.

“There’s actually a statistic that I saw that said two out of three people with depression do not seek or receive treatment,” said Laura Sleight, one of the lead students for the campaign. “It just raises the question, ‘Why? Why not go out and find yourself help?'”

As students studied several of the major metal illnesses such as depression, anxiety, bipolar, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), etc., they learned there was often a stigma associated with these mental challenges. That’s why students came up with #MoreThanAStigma to encourage people to educate themselves and not be afraid to get help.

“They came up with #MoreThanAStigma because they had the idea that we need to see past the misconceptions,” said Anna Durfee, an English facilitator at Compass Academy. “We need to all take on the personal responsibility to learn, and stop being convinced by things we ‘hear.'”

Working in multiple groups, students worked to create multiple facets and avenues for people to easily learn about some of the more common mental illnesses.

“We have a really cool website, we have a social media council, we have a YouTube account, and we’re making videos,” said Tiagan Kimbro, a lead student in the campaign.

The big finale for this year’s project will be a large benefit concert held at Compass Academy on January 15th, 2016. The event starts with food and educational venues at 5 p.m. with music starting at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $5 with 80 percent of the proceeds going to benefit the local Crisis Center in Idaho Falls.

One of the videos made about mental illness can be found HERE.

A link to the students website can be found HERE.

HERE, is a link to the #MoreThanAStigma Facebook page.

Correction: The original version of this story said the donations would go to the Behavioral Health Center. It has been corrected to say the Crisis Center.