As part of their Healthy Living & Personal Fitness Activities course, St. Josephine Virtual High School students raised seed money to create mental health kits for secondary school resource rooms. Students saw a significant need for mental health support for youth, particularly exacerbated by the pandemic. They made a product that would support fellow students’ mental health needs board-wide while also supporting CHEO through a donation built into the cost of the kit.
The first assignment of the year was to design a mental health kit to assist someone in coping with a specific mental health disorder. From there, students came up with the idea to create kits to help Grade 7-12 students deal with the challenges of returning to in-person classes.
The Experiential Learning Department helped purchase items while students volunteered to assemble the kits. The kits included a stress ball, card game, fidget toy, playdoh, a colouring book, pencil crayons, and a digital book of the New Testaments. The digital book included a link to a Bible app with a feature that directs students to scriptures that connect to various specific life circumstances.
Seventy kits were sent in total. Fifteen went to our high schools and one Intermediate School and Elementary School. Each school received between 1 and 8 kits, as resource and guidance teachers and teacher-librarians requested.
Students experienced some challenges in designing and distributing the kits. Still, they persevered, demonstrating resilience and connecting to the reason for developing the kits in the first place!