Chariho Task Force Launches New Campaign to Improve Mental Health

On Thursday, October 12th, members of the Chariho Youth Task Force gave a presentation discussing the stigma around mental health to the Chariho High School student body. This is the latest installment in their "Stand Up To Stigma: Let’s Talk About Mental Health" campaign, which focuses on different aspects of mental health.

The Chariho Youth Task Force s a community group that empowers young adults to create a community of wellness and opportunity. They address issues such as substance abuse, mental health, and the promotion of healthy lifestyles. The task force has been active at Chariho for eight years and includes middle school students, high school students, and college students.

In their latest campaign, the Chariho Youth Task Force is trying to address social stigmas that have made mental health difficult to discuss openly and honestly. They want to address the prejudices that many people hold about mental health and work to change perceptions.

“‘Mental health’ and ‘mental illness’ are increasingly being used as if they mean the same thing, but they do not,” said Chariho Youth Task Force member and Chariho Alumni Dan Fitzgerald. “Everyone has mental health, just like everyone has physical health.”

Fitzgerald went on to point out the importance of maintaining mental health and the daily factors of stress that most people face.

“We all have stress,” said Fitzgerald.

At their presentation, the task force said to visualize a plate in order to demonstrate how stress adds up. Once the plate starts to fill up with things that go on in people's’ lives every day, it just becomes more stressful and stressful. Among these stresses, they highlighted how expectations, social media, and appearance affects the mental health of most teens. After an example of all these stresses, the task force gave the students insight on how to deal with these stresses.

After they were done talking about the importance of mental health and managing stress they decided to introduce their campaign called "Stand Up To Stigma: Let’s Talk About Mental Health."

“This campaign was designed to call out the fact that we all have mental health. It is every bit as important as physical health and it's time that we stand up and start talking about it,” explained member Jasmine Skalin.

Then, the group showed the audience a thirty-second promotional video about their campaign. It included over one hundred members of the Chariho community showing their support for the campaign with a picture of them holding an umbrella.

In the video, Skalin said, “Sometimes we need an umbrella to get through the rain.” This showcases the idea that people need to have a healthy way to cope with their daily stresses. After this example, the crowd made the sounds of rain in order to establish patience and mental cooperation, and the presentation was over.

But the conversation does not stop there. Hanna Bill, a task force member and a Chariho student, said, “It is important to discuss mental health with teenagers because mental health is something that we all have.”

Bill added, “It's time we start talking about it.”

The task force is planning to give additional presentations on topics related to mental health, including addiction and eating disorders. For more information about the Chariho Youth Task Force and their latest campaigns visit their website at charihoyouth.org.