Fernando Colin

*ART 3170-01 CIVIC ENGAGEMENT PROJECT*

STUDENT MENTAL HEALTH--REACHING OUT

The Problem:

Students are unaware of resources that can help them cope with their mental health issues.

A major social issue that is happening in our community is the lack of attention and support that students are getting when it comes to coping with their mental health issues. Students who are barely having the will power to do their assignments are barely going to have the will power or time to eat, sleep and live a healthy lifestyle. If a student begins to ignore these daily needs it can affect their mental health issues even more. 

Research

• Some of these conditions commonly occur together, for example:

• Having another disorder is most common in children with depression: about 3 in 4 children aged 3-17 years with depression also have anxiety (73.8%) and almost 1 in 2 have behavior problems (47.2%).
• For children aged 3-17 years with anxiety, more than 1 in 3 also have behavior problems (37.9%) and about 1 in 3 also have depression (32.3%).
• For children aged 3-17 years with behavior problems, more than 1 in 3 also have anxiety (36.6%) and about 1 in 5 also have depression (20.3%).

• Depression and anxiety have increased over time

• “Ever having been diagnosed with either anxiety or depression” among children aged 6–17 years increased from 5.4% in 2003 to 8% in 2007 and to 8.4% in 2011–2012. 
• “Ever having been diagnosed with anxiety” increased from 5.5% in 2007 to 6.4% in 2011–2012. 
• “Ever having been diagnosed with depression” did not change between 2007 (4.7%) and 2011-2012 (4.9%).

• Rates of mental disorders change with age

•   Diagnoses of depression and anxiety are more common with increased age.
• A recent national study of college students indicated that many students felt overwhelmed with all they have to do, with almost half of students (46.5%) having this feeling at least 7 times a year, and 28.2% having this feeling 11 or more times a year. 
• Likewise, 32.8% felt exhausted (not from physical activity) 9 or more times in the last year. 
• Stress also negatively affects students‘ academics; 22.9% of students reported receiving a lower grade on an exam, 6.6% receiving a lower course grade and 1.3% receiving an incomplete or withdrawing from a course because of their stress (ACHA, 2006b). 
• Similar data from 2003 and 2004 identified stress as the number one health impediment to a students‘ academic performance with 32.0% and 32.4% of students being affected, respectively (ACHA, 2005; ACHA, 2006a). 

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Personal Experience

     Through my own experience I've noticed that students become even more independent after high school and that leads to these students being overwhelmed with stress and anxiety. Students attending college are now responsible for: transportation, food, scheduling, sleep and many other responsibilities that life throws at them. All of these responsibilities are thrown at students at various moments in their life and many times these responsibilities are not dealt with correctly which leads to a sense of not knowing what you're doing. Your confidence begins to drop, you stop eating, you stop caring less and sleeping more, or you stop caring less and partying more. All of these decisions lead to an unhealthy lifestyle that ends up affecting you mentally and to make matters worse there is always different life events that can greatly affect a students mental health even more. An example of this would be my own sister. She started forming at a university that's about 2 hours away from home and it was a very big change for her. She has always been a very responsible, mature and independent woman. In high school she was involved in ASB, Varsity Soccer, various clubs, AP classes and she always seemed to handle everything so well and overall she looked happy. But once she moved away to school she became more anxious and worried about everything. I still remember there was this one weekend where my sister came home and I asked her about her classes at dinner and she had to excuse herself to the restroom and she ended up crying in the restroom. Knowing my sister i decided to not immediately ask her why she randomly started crying, but later at night she ended up having an anxiety attack and i had to help her calm down. We did go through a lot of traumatic family experiences at that time but I could definitely see that she has been going through something mentally for a while. Thats when I started realizing that my sister is alone for most of the time when she's at school. She was so used to having food back home and seeing so many different friendly faces but now she's stuck in her dorm or in her class all by herself. Sadly, this is a reality for many students and some just need that extra support that will help them know that everything is going to be fine.

Interviews

ALAN ROJO

"Bro, honestly i believe a lot more students should seek these services. Mental health is a crazy topic because you never know who's going through something bro. It's not easy for some people to talk about their problems or feelings. And its also not easy for them to talk about their issues to people who care about them because they don't want to burden them or have them worry. Its honestly hard af for me to talk about my feelings bro. And honestly im so fucked in the head but honestly can't you tell? Im always happy and cracking jokes bro but like dang. You know, everything going on in my life so you know what I'll be thinking about sometimes so you kind of understand, but not everyone is going to understand or know if something is going on based on actions like mine. Honestly if they talk about their issues they would live a much more relaxed life."

JACKY GONZALEZ

"I believe more students should speak up about their mental health and what they are going through because there could be other students that are going through the same situation. Hearing about another student going through a similar situation could encourage them to either speak to that individual and they can relate to each other and possibly help one another. Or that individual can provide advice, tips, or encourage them to speak to someone."

YESENIA ROJO (no picture provided)

"Students should speak up about their mental health and what they are going through because it gives them an opportunity to share what they are goin through and getting everything off their chest while at the same time relating to others and knowing they are not alone, everyone shares the same struggles."

What now?

     Schools, families and communities need to have more programs that will help students deal with their mental health issues. I believe that to be able to really help these students the community is going to have to find ways to reach out directly to the students that are having the problems. 

Resources

What to Do About Being Overwhelmed: Graduate Students, Stress and University Services

Sara B. Oswalt, Christina C. Riddock* ---->    https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ899402

Data and Statistics on Children Mental Health ----> https://www.cdc.gov/childrensmentalhealth/data.html