Mental Health Ambassador Conference

Summary by a year 9 student:

I attended the Mental Health Conference at Holy Cross with 8 other TKA Mental Health ambassadors to learn about mental health and well-being, as well as having training to help people with their emotional well-being at TKA. At the conference, we met up with 8 other schools who also participated in promoting mental health, and we discussed our knowledge about issues that contribute to detriment to our mental health such as academic pressure, high expectations and a stressful workload, which could lead us into a stress spiral, and how to healthily cope with anxiety. We listened to a talk by the school mental health consultants and some mental health experts about certain symptoms of worsening mental health and case studies surrounding young people who experience continuous low mood or bad mental health so we could better understand the lives of people surrounding us.

The teachers led some activities that taught us about different coping mechanisms and strategies for relaxation such as Take5 or Box Breathing and their benefits which include focusing on our O2/CO2 balance, gaining control of our breathing and becoming more aware of ourselves to avoid being distracted by our surroundings. At last we brainstormed ideas in order to promote mental health awareness in TKA, and created events that we hope to encourage normalising the stigma surrounding mental health and make TKA a safe and comfortable environment for everyone. Overall, we had a great time and learned a lot about dealing with mental health as well as created an action plan with activities we hope to implement in TKA to increase awareness about mental well-being.

Victoria C
Year 9 Student