Okay Ka Ba?

Evaluating and Enriching Philippine Public High School Mental Health Services with Sergio Osmeña Sr. High School

Serbisyong Mental

Serbisyong Mental is a group from both 12-B and 12-F dedicated to enriching the mental health services of Sergio Osmeña Sr. High School in the context of the new normal.

Sergio Osmeña Sr. High School

Sergio Osmeña Sr. High School is a public high school located in Del Monte Avenue, Quezon City. As of 2023, it has over 1000 students enrolled.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a detrimental impact on student mental health.

Like all schools in the Philippines, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Sergio Osmeña Sr. High School to adapt to an online learning setup. Studies have shown that the pandemic brought the mental health and well-being of the Filipino youth to a serious state.

Although Sergio Osmeña Sr. High School's mental health services are comprehensive and proactive, the guidance counselors stated that they were open to a workshop to enrich and address the shortcomings of their school’s mental health services. They expressed concerns with student misconceptions about mental health, which discourages them from using the school’s mental health services. It is often that they have to reach out to students who are undergoing mental health issues, rather than the other way around.

Our Objectives

To reevaluate the mental health services of Sergio Osmeña Sr. High School in the context of the new normal
to address the identified shortcomings and increase the students' capacity to help one another in times of mental crisis

GOALS

to investigate the perspectives of both the students and the guidance counselors of Sergio Osmeña Sr. High School through surveys and interviews respectively
to conduct a workshop in the school to address the lasting effects of the pandemic on student mental health, as well as to clear up mental health misconceptions that have persisted even before the pandemic, all starting with one school.

Evaluation of Mental Health Services

Preparing the survey and interview questions

Hand-in-hand with our Filipino 6 Research, we prepared and finalized our survey and interview questions for evaluating the school’s mental health services. We also received guidance from the Philippine Mental Health Association (PMHA), on going about conducting the interview, as well as in creating a criteria for evaluating the mental health services.

Sending out the survey

Initially, our group sent out a GForm link, but after minimal responses, we gave 40 paper copies of the survey instead.

Conducting the Interview

We then conducted an interview with the school's guidance counselors, where we corroborated the results of the student survey and inquired on how they went about providing mental health services during the pandemic.

Research

Our group also began researching psychological first-aid using the book, "LIFELINE: a Layperson's Guide to Helping People in Crisis."

What did we find?

How students were affected by the pandemic

Students were both positively and negatively affected by the online learning setup. An interview with the school's guidance counselor revealed that their students commonly suffered from academic exhaustion. She also went on to say that many students self-diagnose. Many students claim to have depression or other mental health issues without proper evaluation.

The quality of the mental health services

Overall, the quality of the school’s mental health services is very high. It is very accessible, and the services are tailored to the needs of the students while maintaining their safety and privacy. However, the student survey results showed that they found the quality of service to be low. Only a few students use the service, and few students are certain that they are satisfied with the service received.

Lack of student awareness

Many students seldom use their school's mental health services due to a lack of awareness. According to the school's guidance counselor, this is because students have the wrong concept of what their guidance counseling unit provided, despite the guidance counseling unit’s efforts to orient the students. Students think that being sent there means being “pasaway,” and as such, they are deterred from it. They stick with what they know, which is also why she believes students do not explore other mental health service options, even if the guidance counselors advise them to do so. Many students were unsure if their school’s mental health services are enough to provide their needs, most likely because they are very wary of making use of it.

Overall, the issue lies not necessarily in the school's mental health services itself, but with the student body's perception of them.

The "Okay Ka Ba?" Workshop

What should the workshop be about, then?

Given everything we learned from the evaluation, we wanted the workshop to focus on clearing up misconceptions about both mental health and mental health services. We also wanted to increase the students' capacity to help one another and teach basic psychological first-aid.

Of course, we, as high school students, did not have the authority to conduct the workshop by ourselves. Fortunately, we were able to meet Ms. Cyrill Arce, a UP Diliman student taking up her Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology. She agreed to be a resource speaker for our workshop and discuss mental health and psychological first-aid.

We shared with her our own psychological first-aid research (based on the LIFELINE book) so that she could implement it into her talk. We also decided to turn the research into a brochure to be distributed to the students during the workshop.

We then coordinated the finer details of the workshop with both Ms. Arce and with Sergio Osmeña Sr. High School's guidance counselors.

Our group was able to coordinate with both her and Sergio Osmeña Sr. High School's guidance counselors, and we came up with a general program flow, as well as a short activity.

We titled our workshop, "Okay Ka Ba?" and had one of our group members act as emcee.

Finally, we printed 200 copies of brochures for the expected 200 student audience.

Folding the Brochures

Introducing the Speaker

Ms. Arce Teaching Basic Mental Health

Psychological First-Aid Interactive Activity

Overall, the workshop went along without much of a hitch! It didn't go exactly according to schedule due to the students arriving late, but we still managed to finish on-time.

The students seemed to enjoy the psychological first-aid activity the most. After the basic psychological first-aid techniques that Ms. Arce taught, the activity's main purpose was to allow the students the opportunity to practice it. Scenarios were presented one-by-one on the screen, as well as choices on how to respond (ex. "Your friend is very upset after having failed the exam, saying that they are worthless. What do you say?") The students then had the opportunity to respond what choice of action they would personally choose.

After all that...

Our project was able to meet its goals!

We gathered insight on the current state of Philippine public high school mental health services!

We successfully conducted the workshop!

Here's what we think!

Our group believes that, overall, we were able to spread mental health awareness to the students of Sergio Osmeña Sr. High School and aid their guidance counseling unit.

In the future, we recommend that another public high school should be focused on, especially those whose guidance counseling unit is undermanned. Additionally, another workshop may be arranged for a larger number of students, since the project was only able to accommodate 200 out of the more than a thousand students. Materials similar to brochures, could be distributed to directly clarify common misconceptions among students, such as distinguishing a difference between the guidance counseling unit and a discipline office.

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