Mind Menders – Borris Vocational School

Why as a team did you choose to focus on this challenge?

We decided to focus on this challenge because we feel mental health is an important topic that needs to be discussed more than it is by people currently. It’s an issue that affects everyone, including young people like us. As a team we think it’s the topic that we can relate to the most and we’re interested and excited to learn more about it. Everybody knows someone that struggles with mental health issues, and we wanted to do our part to help find a solution. We were given this opportunity and we would like to explore more into the topic.

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What do you know now about the challenge that you didn't know before?

From our research we have learned that we are a lot more educated about mental health nowadays in comparison to the generation of our parents or grandparents. This is good because mental health is so important and effects everybody and it's really shown us that even though we as a team are going to focus on our generation, there is also work to be done with older generations as well. We also learned that more than 50% of people will be diagnosed with some kind mental illness or disorder at some point in their lives.

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What have you learnt about your Hero?

Our hero Jenny Jenkins is a 16-year-old TY student that lives in Co. Cavan, Ireland, with her mother since her parents got divorced. Jenny suffers with social anxiety and finds it hard to talk to people. She is starting 5th year next year but must pick her subjects soon. She is very stressed and doesn’t know what subjects to pick as she didn’t do as well as she expected in her Junior Certificate, and she worries that she's not smart enough to pursue her dreams of becoming a doctor. This stress has also caused problems with friends and family.

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If you could improve one thing for your Hero what would that be?

If we could improve one thing for our hero Jenny Jenkins, we would help her to manage her stress levels, as we feel it is the main factor in holding her back in both her education and relationships. We think stress management is really important, especially in teenagers at times in their lives when going through their exams, and, when in TY thinking about and planning for the future. There are many ways people can deal with and manage stress, and we believe our app would help give Jenny the resources to achieve a relaxed mind and mend relationships.

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Do you have any ideas for a potential solution? No matter how raw, share them with your Mentors for feedback.

Our potential solution is directed towards young people in schools as it's something we see daily. We want to design an app that helps teenagers with their everyday stresses. There are already mindfulness apps, but our app would be designed by teenagers for teenagers. We think it should include things like a daily compliment and a log that you can fill out to keep track of your sleep and moods. We also think it would be fun to design and include a few quick games that you can play to take your mind away for a minute or two.

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Ask your Mentor anything …. This is a chance to ask your Mentors a direct question relating to your Big Idea.

If we could ask our big idea mentor anything it would be how do you cope with and manage stress in your life, and if you were in Jenny’s position what would you do? We know that stress is a big thing for all ages and would really like to get a different opinion that would help us develop and focus our ideas to design an app to the best of our abilities.