Help schools address mental health and suicide

Thank you for your support of our Unsilence initative to help schools address mental health.

Across our Unsilence in-person programs, mental health is named, again and again, as a topic that's difficult for teachers and young people to talk about in a meaningful way.

Last week, 40 social studies teachers participated in Unsilence teacher trainings. The teachers explored our online Unsilence learning experiences -- like Oxygen and Tomorrow -- and explored how to talk with their students about gun violence, incidents of suicide, and domestic terrorism, all of which affect our young people in profound ways.

One specific barrier to dialogue that the teachers identified was a sense of fear among parents that their children were not yet ready to talk about these difficult "mature" topics. The teachers noted that parents often need the reminder that their children are in fact already exposed (through TV, film, and social media, as well as through direct experience) to different forms of violence that can be perceived as inappropriate for teens. Yet young people need the guidance of trusted adults to learn how to talk openly and process their complex emotions and urgent questions.

By the end of the Unsilence trainings, the teachers walked away with specific tools for helping young people talk about individual mental health and community mental health, including how to talk to school administrators and how to organize parent-student education programs to encourage dialogue across generations.

Thank you for your ongoing support of our work. We can't unsilence without you!