To spread awareness of our risk and protective factors, we have created various social media accounts and hosted many community-involved events. We have established social media accounts on Instagram and TikTok, which were specially selected to target the youth audience. Additionally, we decided to focus our 2024-2025 theme around the impacts of social media on mental health, as it has become an increasingly relevant topic in our community.
2023-2024
Our HOSA group launched social media accounts on Instagram and TikTok and produced reel Podcasts to share valuable resources and support. On Instagram, we post tips for managing anxiety and overall mental health, facts about anxiety, credible information on anxiety and anxiety-based topics, and daily check-ins! Our TikTok account features short videos of events our group holds around the school to positively impact our peers mental health, as well as conducting "interviews" with our peers where we hear their perspectives on various topics. Additionally, we host a Spotify podcast where we interview fellow high school students about their own personal experiences with anxiety and coping strategies they use.Â
2024-2025
We began our mental health promotion again, as we decided to focus on improving our community's mental health by centering our outreach on social media and its effects. We hosted various events within our school, explicitly emphasizing a lack of technological use to ensure our peers were enjoying themselves and connecting with their community, without the use of social media. We made posts revolving around how social media affects mental health, specifically, comparison culture, validation seeking, and emotional maturity. Similarly how it relates to risk factors, we made sure to talk about our protective factors: media literacy, self-worth, and support systems.
We will be competing in NJ HOSA's 2025 SLC in the category of Mental Health Promotion!
