While Choate has encouraged discussions about socioeconomic status, sexual identity, and racial diversity, it has not yet held an open discussion about mental health – until last Tuesday, December 8. Peer Educators hosted an informational session for student leaders about mental health, as part of a project called “The Mental Health Campaign” that the counseling office and several students are spearheading.
This year, the Counseling Office and representatives from the Peer Educators and the Assessment Team created a subgroup to address mental health. The group planned to kick-start the Mental Health Campaign with an informative session about mental health. The inspiration for this session came from a TED Talk by high school student Kevin Breel called “Confessions of a Depressed Comic,” in which he describes his experience with depression and challenges others to support those suffering from depression.
Said Breen in his TED talk, “We need to stop the ignorance, stop the intolerance, stop the stigma, and stop the silence, and we need to take away the taboos, take a look at the truth, and start talking, because the only way we’re going to beat a problem that people are battling alone is by standing strong together, by standing strong together.”
The meeting’s objective was to educate student leaders about mental health and inspire them to fight generalizations and stigma about mental health at Choate. Another objective was to remind the student leaders about the support systems for mental health already in place at the Health Center and the counseling office. The counseling office hopes that by educating students about mental health, students will feel more comfortable to ask for help.
Mrs. Charlotte Davidson, Director of Counseling Services, remarked, “Here in the Health Center and counseling office, we know that people struggle with difficulty approaching counseling for a whole bunch of different reasons.” However, she said, “Human beings need support. One of the best ways we do that is through our relationships with one another.”
Jack Tenney ’16, Head Prefect, thought that the meeting was a good idea. “I think it’s really important for prefects to be very proactive about how they handle mental health because depression and mental health is something that can be bottled up a lot.”
The student leaders shared their opinions and furthered their understanding of mental health through a discussion and Q&A session at the meeting. Jasmine Kim ’16, a Nichols prefect, remarked, “I realized that depression is such an under-discussed topic, and that it’s important to be a supportive community for those suffering from it. I agree that the topic may seem a little intimidating, but we can understand it much better just from listening to those people who have been through depression.”
However, some students believe that there are still steps to be taken in order to foster more open conversations about mental health on campus. Noted Zemia Edmondson ’16, ” I wished that the counselors at the meeting were more receptive to the students’ concerns about medical leave. It seemed that they brushed off the fear that many students had regarding medical leave and also didn’t have a solution on how to alleviate that fear.”
Last week’s meeting was only the first step in the ongoing effort to diminish and eventually eliminate the stigma surrounding mental health on Choate campus.
“From the moment a student enters Choate, we want them to learn what resources are available for them in case they need help. We mention these resources in Sophomore Seminar and when working with students in Assessment Team and the prefects. We think students need to know what these resources are, because you need to know how to take care of yourself and when to go seek help,” said Mrs. Davidson.
