By LAURA HAMMACK, guest columnist

Bring Change to Mind is a new club at Brown County High School. Facilitated by adult sponsors and led by students, this club is a chapter of a national organization seeking to provide teenagers a place to “share their voices and raise awareness around mental health.”

This is an important club for many reasons. First, it is student-led. Second, the students focus their efforts toward incredibly important ends like increasing awareness and education, while challenging stigmas that are commonly correlated with mental health conditions. I am very proud that our high school students have identified these issues as deserving of their attention and advocacy.

To increase awareness of the work that this club is leading, our grant-funded Social-Emotional Learning Coach, Dr. Sandy Washburn, worked with the director of the Brown County System of Care, Mary Florence, to co-write a School-Based Systems of Care (SOC) grant. The purpose of this grant is to strengthen the relationship between the local System of Care and the schools, decrease mental health stigma within the schools, strengthen referral pathways, and cultivate linkages between the schools and mental health providers in the community.

To meet the goals of this grant, the Brown County High School Bring Change to Mind Club recently led an incredible event called the “Get Schooled Tour.” This highly engaging and interactive assembly educated students from Grades 5 through 12 about mental health and the system of care that surrounds them in school and across our community.

The “Get Schooled” speaker was deeply engaging. There was live “rock concert” entertainment, interactive polling, and engaging video. Additionally, immediately following the assembly, support personnel from the schools and Centerstone were available to help any students who identified a need to talk in private with a licensed professional.

I was deeply impressed by the way our students listened and engaged in this convocation. The interactive polling questions were administered anonymously and the results proved that the work we are doing with mental health awareness, social/emotional learning and stigma reduction is massively important.

And even with all that we are doing, the student polling responses certainly indicate that we need to do more.

I am so grateful that Brown County High School has their student-led Bring Change to Mind club to help advance this very important work. Additionally, I am optimistic that the comprehensive social-emotional curricular overhaul that we deployed this year for students in Grades K-12 will realize lasting impact over time.

We know that 1 in 4 people will be affected by a mental illness at some point in their life. We also know, that because of the stigma surrounding mental illness, many people live their lives without appropriate treatment. Early access to treatment and comprehensive support networks in the home, at school and across the community are critical for children and families in need.

The schools must be the community leader of this work for youth, and we take that responsibility very seriously. However, we can’t do it alone. We are so grateful to the number of community partners who are working with us to advance education and awareness about mental health and wellness. Our school community is stronger and more well because of all of you.

Laura Hammack is superintendent of Brown County schools. She can be reached at 812-988-6601 or [email protected].