May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and one of the associated themes this year is Look Around, Look Within!, emphasizing the impact of surroundings on mental health.
Thanks to some creative high school students, the environment of Montgomery County schools will soon include some colorful additions in each classroom and common space. Student board members of Volunteers for Mental Health In Montgomery County designed signs that hope to raise awareness of the mental health hotline number — 988 — which went into effect in July of last year.
Using the resources of a Tipmont Operation Roundup grant, student board members: Hayden Jefferies and Kristen Thompson (Crawfordsville High School), Ryan Hopper and Clauddia Smedley (North Montgomery High School) and Jessie Bradley and Evelyn Zachary (Southmont High School) created colorful compositions to draw attention to a serious topic — the percentage of Hoosier middle and high school students who considered attempting suicide. According to a 2020 Indiana Youth Institute report, the percentages ranged from a low of 11.8% (or one in nine sixth grade students) to a high of 19.3% (or one in five 10th grade students). The SAMHSA National Survey on Drug Use and Health estimated that 262,000 Hoosiers ages 18 years and older had serious thoughts of suicide during 2017-18. Rather than having youths in need struggle to access and remember a long toll free number, the use of the simple three-digit 988 number should expedite the access to help.
It is the goal of Volunteers for Mental Health to extend the 988 sign project into the community and workplaces in the near future. Zac Bradford of Town and Country Print Shop assisted with the project.
For further information about Volunteers for Mental Health, a United Way partner agency, visit online at www.vmhmc.org/.
