Westside raises awareness on mental health matters

Westside School’s Mental Health Matters awareness campaign culminated at break-time yesterday with a variety of activities.
Forming part of Mental Health Week the event and the weeklong activities were the brainchild of Kerri Scott, who is in charge of looking after the welfare of all Westside students. School Principal Michelle Barabich also gave the initiative and event her full support.
“This is mental health week and the theme is surviving or thriving and we are trying to raise more awareness amongst our students and their parents about the issues we feel are prevalent in the youth,” said Ms Scott.
Ms Scott held meetings with various Government Departments and trained professionals who deal with mental health to ascertain what issues affect the youth in Gibraltar the most.
“We are trying to look at how we are addressing this and ensure that we are doing what we can to provide for our youth. We felt we wanted to act and contribute positively in an active way,” Ms Scott said on how the week of activities relating to mental health arose.
Each day the campaign at Westside tackled an issue surrounding mental health with the students, including Connect; Be Active; Keep Learning; Be Mindful, Be Present, Be Alive and Give. The students were encouraged to write on pieces of paper their thoughts on these topics and pin it to the wall. By yesterday (Friday), the wall was full of yellow [the colour of mental health] pages where the students had written down their feelings on the themes.
“The students have had to actively engage with the topics and not just walk post a poster,” said Ms Scott.
FULL STORY IN OUR PRINT AND E-EDITIONS