2016 COMMUNITY BENEFIT REPORT
All Our Stories
Youth Group Brings Mental Health Challenges to Light
“ Addressing pediatric mental health in our community starts with coming together to better understand the stigma surrounding the topic,” says Deb Federspiel, strategist for mental health programs at Children’ s Hospital Colorado.“ If we want to change the conversation around youth mental health, we can’ t just engage adults in that conversation.”
As a way to bring youth together on the subject, Children’ s Colorado’ s Pediatric Mental Health Institute formed the Youth Action Board( YAB), which consists of up to 15 youth from across the Denver metro area interested in raising awareness about de-stigmatizing mental health issues.
“ My mom is a social worker and my dad is interested in psychology, so mental health has always been a big topic of conversation in the house,” explains Maeve, 18.“ But when I started having a bad experience with girls at school sophomore year, I became really depressed.”
Maeve joined the YAB around the same time she was struggling at school. For her, it was an outlet to talk about mental health and stigma with her peers, and to use their shared experiences to create a project that would impact others.
Each year, the YAB designs an interactive art exhibit to reflect their discussions surrounding mental health. In 2016, the exhibit was titled,“ Mental Health is All Our Stories,” in which they encouraged teens to create a story in only six words:
An Oscar winning performance:“ I’ m fine.”
Sharing silence can speak very loudly.
There is no normal. Let go.
Maeve’ s senior project at school was an extension of her work in YAB. The goal was to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health in her school community. As part of this project, Maeve presented on the importance of reducing mental health stigma to a school auditorium of 500 students, then encouraged her peers to participate in the six-word story project. She also organized a teacher training for staff on how to address youth mental health challenges.
Her work informed the creation of a community toolkit so other individuals and organizations, like schools, can engage youth in similar activities.
“ Giving a presentation to the entire school is something I thought I’ d never do. Students came up to me afterwards and said they wished it went longer,” Maeve says.“ My biggest takeaway from everything is that I can speak up and make a difference, and that’ s something young people don’ t realize. There are plenty of other kids like me. They just need an outlet.”
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