20A06

An online campaign which aimed to educate parents of youths on the mental health problems that their child could be facing.

Our class uploaded informational posts on Instagram and Facebook, joining parent interest groups in hope that we would be able to reach more parents and advocate for our cause. The posts aimed to answer a few main questions and problems that parents would commonly face — possible signs of mental health problems, why it is important to and how to deal with these problems.

Instagram & Facebook: @TheSayangInitiative

What went well?

We had a relatively clear plan and timeline for the posts and knew the kind of theme we wanted to go for. Additionally, the research was comprehensive and answered some of the questions we hoped to educate parents on. We were able to clearly get our points across through simple informative posts on Instagram and Facebook. The designs were also visually appealing as there was a consistent theme. The class was able to work well and efficiently in the teams we were split into, and because we had a clear aim and goal, the communication across the different teams was efficient as well.

What didn’t go too well?

In terms of research, the information found on the internet was generic and didn’t provide specific material on student mental health, outside of the constant narrative to “de-stigmatise” mental health in students.

In terms of design, the video editing team has also pointed out that it would be better if less time was needed to create the videos.

In terms of outreach, it was significantly harder for us to connect with parents as the characteristics of our target audience (parents) were vastly different from our capacity as students. Furthermore, the timespan of our project was rather short and thus, there was insufficient time to convey the essence of our message to the parents. There were also attempts to connect with the Parents Support Group (PSG), however it was also difficult to contact them. We also utilised Facebook groups for Singaporean parents, but ultimately did not receive ideal engagement from these groups.

In terms of class participation, although the project was efficiently run, more could have been done to ensure stronger class participation amongst all students.

What could we have done better instead?

In order to provide for more extensive research, more methods of research could have been applied such as the use of a questionnaire disseminated to students to understand the needs of their mental health, and the type of support that would be ideal from their parents. Other avenues also include reaching out to the school counsellor and external organisations to seek for more information relating to mental health in students, and the role of parents in this cause.

On the long duration needed to edit videos, two solutions are being explored in response to this complication. Firstly, the editors are upskilling themselves with knowledge of their video editing softwares in order to work more efficiently. Secondly, we could also utilise the editing functions of TikTok to provide better transitions for our videos in less time.

For outreach, we could have instead reached out to the school counsellor to conduct engagement with parents, and collaborate with external organisations and institutions to disseminate our material. More frequent postings could also have helped to bring out the essence of our message in a shorter time frame. Under the absence of COVID-19 restrictions, we could also have worked with the Central CDC of which SAJC has a close relationship with, and engaged in the physical distribution of pamphlets promoting awareness towards mental health in students to parents.

In terms of student participation, the tasks could have been better delegated amongst students in order to ensure that everyone was included in the project.