NAMI Peer Outreach
NAMI Peer Outreach was started with the goal of bringing awareness to our school about mental illnesses. It is important because no one really talks about mental illnesses, and we want to help people feel more included and heard throughout are school. It serves our whole school and people suffering with mental illness. We are still building the group, and we hope it will contribute to our community by lifting the negative stigma on mental illnesses. We wanted to make it so that it is purely education-based.
Current Efforts:
We have met with Amy, Lisa, Sheila, and Kim to discuss future plans of this project.
We have created social media accounts on Instagram and Tiktok for more exposure and awareness.
We dedicated time to learn more about mental health, stress, and anxiety so we can properly educate other people.
We are working on contest ideas involving strategies on how to cope with mental health.
We are planning:
We are planning to host Instagram and Tiktok contests
QR scan codes around the school
Schedule Meetings with NAMI
Teach sophomores about mental health
Group: Leadership Class
Student Leaders: Emmalee Toomey, Emily Anderson, Ruby Reimann
Faculty Mentors: Amy Lilavois, Kim Garrison (Behavioral Health Coordinator), Lisa Bellcastro (NAMI Representative, MV Community Services), Natalie Munn
Past Work
2019-2020
Past Efforts:
This semester we started the NAMI club with the help of Lisa Bellcastro, our local NAMI representative.
We had many meetings and were able to put posters up around the school, and our first focus area was on depression.
We created a bulletin board in a central location, which will have flyers and other educational information.
We planned :
A walk for Mental Health Awareness Month in May, including the community and students.
A few Movie Nights. One movie that appeals more to teenagers that has an aspect of some kind of a mental illness subject and possibly a documentary for everybody to watch about suicide awareness. We will try to get a theater instead of the PAC if we can get one offered to us for free.
Making t-shirts and stickers to help spread the word about our club and to make our club more official.
Student Leaders: Izabella Morris, Emily Anderson, Lydia Carlos
Faculty Mentors: Amy Lilavois, Natalie Munn, Lisa Bellcastro (NAMI representative, MV Community Services)
