Mental health matters
Our Chosen ChallengeChallenge 5 – Mental Health
Category
Service
Borris Vocational School, Knocknagundarragh, Borris, Co. Carlow
Teacher
Kerry Anne Walsh
Team Members
Abbeygail Foley Beatrice Pearson Chanise Murphy Nuala May
Why as a team did you choose to focus on this challenge?
We chose to work on this challenge because the challenge is a massive problem for our age group and especially women. It allows us to relate more to the topic as a group. By doing research about the topic it allowed us to learn more about how different people may cope with mental health. It allows us to understand more about how people are suffering.
What do you know now about the challenge that you didn't know before?
As a team we learned that women suffer with mental health more than men but men have a tendency to keep it to themselves and suffering silence while women have more open about there feelings and get help. Animals can improve your mental health and wellbeing, this will be incorporated into our idea, exercise is the most popular method of coping with mental health issues in Ireland. We also learned Ireland has the 3rd worst mental health rates in Europe.
What have you learnt about your Hero?
Our hero is a 16 year old girl called Sally, who suffers from anxiety. She struggles to share her problems with other people and is suffering in silence. She sometimes wished that she was able to talk to the people around her and to be able to tell teachers how she feels about certain situations that happen in class. She gets nervous when having to speak in front of everyone and she sometimes wants to just run away from it all.
If you could improve one thing for your Hero what would that be?
If we could improve one thing for our Hero, we would like to have more resources for our Hero to be able to cope with their mental health and not be afraid to talk to the people around them. It would help to encourage people to be more open about their mental health problems so that they can have the support of our friends and family.
Do you have any ideas for a potential solution? No matter how raw, share them with your Mentors for feedback.
Our potential solution is a wellbeing week that would happen once a month in school, during this wellbeing week we would have activities organized such as a day where we bring in pets because its proven that pets can improve your wellbeing. other activities we could do during the week include a mental health walk, Arts and sport activities and festivals.
Ask your Mentor anything …. This is a chance to ask your Mentors a direct question relating to your Big Idea.
What resources would you put in place for mental health?