Centennial High

School
California
Mental Health and Awareness Day
2015-16

Janaki Patel
 Description of the Project
A recent study done at the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention shows
that 1 in 5 children are diagnosed with depression. As American Education continues to
become increasingly arduous in order to compete against other nations, the issue of high
levels of stress prevails in many schools. Centennial FBLAs mission was to raise awareness
of such issues in collaboration with other clubs on campus and the Corona-Norco Unified
School District to create a stress relieving day for our students. The objective was to
reduce mental health issues throughout our school population as well as providing
professional resources to help them overcome their issues; in addition to our school
population, we wanted to branch out to other families in our community.
Leading to January 20, we needed to advertise the event so that the amount of students
participating can encompass all populations. If we managed to increase `participation, we
would then be able to create a more welcoming environment so that people who actually
need help would be more open to participate and not feel insecure or singled out when
reaching out to receive the needed assistance.
The event itself surrounded a lunchtime activity with booths and posters. The booths were
laid out around the campus quad with music playing, inviting students to join our booths
and find resources that they didnt know were available.
The booths include:
Check In: Participants would sign in and fill out a check list. If they completed all activities,
they would be entered in a raffle drawing with a chance to win a prize. The prize (donated by
the Corona Unified School District) were soccer balls, basketballs, gift cards, footballs, t-shirts,
etc.
UNITY: Grounding Exercises: Participants would approach the booth and ask the UNITY
volunteers and ask them some questions then do the activities which involved breathing
exercises and exercises which increased the level of physical pressure and then allowed for it
to be released.
Youth Advisory Council: YAC ran the booth which was solely aimed to provide an in depth
understanding about the effects of Mental Disorders, E-cigarettes, Cigarettes, and Alcohol and
Drug Abuse. In addition to the information, the Youth Advisory Council provided us with very
brochures and information sheets that we gave to our students.
What if: The What if club is molded around the issues of Mental Health and its
prominence in our schools. What if were gracious to allow us to learn about several topics
of Mental Health and elaborate on the event using tips from their club.
 Associated Student Body: Centennial High Schools ASB was in charge of running a Wheel
of Numbers booth. In this activity, each booth correlated to a specific activity on the provided
number sheet. In addition, they gave out candy prizes. Centennial ASB also allowed us to use
their speaker system which was used for music and announcements.
Future Business Leaders of America: FBLA members ran the script booth in addition to
handling the other traffic at other booths. The FBLA booth was specifically focused on a given
script which was read to members sitting in an semi- enclosed area. There was an array of
chairs which were the members sat and engaged with the students. The script was correlated
to calming exercises which made the students learn techniques to use when a sudden burst
of frustration or a sudden burst of negative emotions came along.

Primary Project Objectives

1. Improving the overall atmosphere at school while providing resources for the
students
Many high school students are unhappy due to the pressures of academic
and social achievement. This event was created to decrease stress levels as well as offer
new means to fight their pressures through activities, resource hotlines, school counseling,
and clubs. Opening these new pathways of stress relief were the target goal of our event.
Luminous resources were given from our
2. To raise mental health awareness
We wanted increased the understanding of mental problems within our community.
Many students and staff do not necessarily know that we students are capable of having
mental problems. This creates a stigma when students do have problems because they do
not seek help but instead stay sheltered, letting their problems grow and foment. With this
event, we aimed to shed light on this issue and show the population that these problems
and mental health issues do exist and that its common amongst students, leading to the
increased amount of students affected by mental health issues to go out and receive help.

Chapter Involvement
Centennial High Schools FBLA chapter facilitated this project in many ways.
Our members were the main work force when setting up the booths for activities, running
the activities, developing the projects procedures, and spreading word of MHA (Mental
Health Awareness) Day amongst school members.
This event could not have possibly happened as smoothly as it did if it werent for our
enthusiastic members. Despite minor communication gaps, our members were willing to
mold around their schedules to help us. More specifically they:
1. Created posters that were hung around campus advertising the special day.
2. Helped create flyers and large scale posters with qr codes linking the reader to
mental health hotlines depending on what they needed (Stress, domestic violence,
drug abuse, etc,) posted around campus and at the booth stations on MHA day.
3. Set up tables and chairs, E-Z ups, posters, music (manned the stereos), passed out
flyers, ran stress relief activities, ran sign in tables, and verbally spread the word.
4. Met with us on planning days to organize this event. Offered the idea of creating a
Mental Health PSA Video.
5. Participated in the filming of a PSA video raising awareness of the dangers of mental
health issues affecting students.

Other Resource Involvement

I. Corona Unified School District

Coalition between the CNUSD drug abuse council, YAC (Youth Advisory Council), and the
District Mental Distress Team to give our Centennial FBLA the resources needed to fight
stress amongst adolescents.
Without their contribution, this project would not have happened. They allowed for our
approval within our school to have a day dedicated to our cause. The District also funded
this project and purchased the items passed out (stress balls, goodie bags, pamphlets,
candies, sports utilities passed out as raffle prizes, gift cards passed out as raffle prizes, t-
shirts, and co polyester water bottles).

II. United Neighbors Involving Today's Youth

United Neighbors Involving Today's Youth (UNITY) was responsible for many parts of
this event. We had a collaboration with many different clubs on campus. Specifically, they
advertised MHA day, leading up to the event. Their members assisted in the advertisement
and the execution of the event. During the MHA Day, they ran the stress relieving booth
with our school population.

III. What if
The What if club made QR code posters which provided a pathway for people to
become linked to new resources. In addition, they ran the Dice Toss booth on the day of
the actual event. The Dice Toss activity consists of a series of tasks which were related to
stress relief. Each dice number correlated to a specific physical activity (i.e. jumping jacks,
burpees, windmills etc.)
IV. Associated Student Body
Centennials Associated Student Body (ASB) helped at our event by providing
a Wheel of Numbers game as well as the speaker system. The ASB coordinator also
allowed us to reserve the school area and provided the tables and chairs. ASB also donated
many supplies necessary in creating the posters such as allowing us to use their paint,
paint brushes and supplies, and large poster papers. The poster papers were also part of
decorating much of the booths, such as acting as curtains and walls to close off an area
even if it were outside the parameters.

Degree of Impact on Community

This event was an experiment, which would allow us to see a more complete scope of how
the event was to be executed at other schools. Starting from this year, we are evolving this
event by branching it out to a majority of the middle and high schools in the Corona-Norco
Unified School District. This event impacted the students of Centennial High School by
drawing in 84% of the targeted 35% population who anonymously selected yes to being
Chronically Unhappy. A pre and post survey were taken by the Riverside County
Department of Mental Health Services. In addition to this survey, we used the California
Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) which is a survey given to all 6-12th grade students. This
anonymous survey allowed us to obtain reliable statistics on the prominence of mental
disorders such as depression. Before our event, it was found that 36% of the population
felt chronic depression and among those 36%, 22% attempted suicide. The post survey
information shows that the short term happiness has been increased by 19%. However, we
cannot extract any long term statistics because the event is not being done on a frequent
basis. Additionally, the event has been done recently, so it is not feasible to get long term
results as they would not accurately represent long term effects.
Through our event, we impacted the students who are unaware of the consequences of
such mental disorders. By properly conveying the effects of depression and how it can be
affected by bullying, social stresses, and academic stresses students learned how to
conduct themselves around people they dont know. Spreading the message of mental
health allowed us to create a wider spectrum of understanding in the people whom rarely
encounter social anxiety, depression, or other mental health issues. Aside from awareness
and direct results. Many students obtained resources such as hotlines, pamphlets,
exercise, counseling exposure, and stress reducing items. The development of this event
also, allowed students whom were afraid to seek help individually, to privately meet with
the on campus mental health and crisis control counselor, Mary Grothem.

Project Evaluation
To single handedly rid Centennial High Schools campus of mental health issues
would be deemed near impossible but still a necessary action to be attempted for the
greater good of the students. Although there are no means of measuring our success in
rates, charts, and numbers, we were able to touch a majority of our students through
inviting them to our activities. The large number of interested teenagers gave a hopeful
insight that they are comfortable with mental health issues and are aware of the resources
available to fight their stress or socially derived problems.
This Community Service Project did not reach its maximum potential, seeing
difficulties in obtaining proper funding, understanding of the students unwilling to come
out to the event, and professionals helping with the project.
With an increased funding we would have been able to more effectively attracted
booth users due to a sense of professionality in the event. The money would be used to
buy and create EZ ups and tables with our logos to better advertise our event. We would
also create more advanced activities that used more tools for stress relieving and happy
exercises. Raising awareness would also be much more efficient by using a higher quality
method of advertising other than volunteer created painted paper posters hung around
school.
The communication throughout this project was very effective and allowed for
smooth transitions. The effective communication allowed us to organize our priorities,
efficiently completing our tasks as a team. This made it very simple to distribute
responsibilities between our committed members and other club volunteers.

The Mental Health and Awareness Project was a great start to a yearly event. Our
community and service event allowed forteenageres to explore the high school
enviornment to which they were not exposed to. They also became aware of their available
resources and methods to manage stress.