Teens tackling mental health
When Jack Franklin sent out an email to TV presenter, psychologist and author Nigel Latta, he lucked out: the 18-year-old Nelson College student received a reply.
‘‘It was awesome, we were stoked,’’ he said.
As a result of Franklin’s reaching out, Latta will be speaking in Nelson on September 20, at an event organised by Franklin and fellow students Austin Candlish and Oliver Martin.
Latta’s talk will be on the communication behind mental health with a focus on youth, parents and teachers: understanding why people do the things they do, and how you can help people change the things they do.
The renowned psychologist was the presenter of Beyond The Darklands, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Teenagers and The Politically Incorrect Parenting Show.
The entity that will host him, Speak it Up, was set up by the students in late February, creating a Facebook page and a website. They describe it as a ‘‘mental health social enterprise run by youth for youth’’.
‘‘We thought it would be cool to leave this kind of legacy behind for Nelson as well as for the college, but also to have a positive impact on youth,’’ Franklin said.
The past couple of years have been tough for young people, they say, firstly with Covid-19 and its associated disruptions, and then with the flooding on top of that.
‘‘Being at home for a long time with Covid-19, you don’t have that connection with your peers,’’ Franklin said.
Candlish said while there was definitely more awareness around expressing your emotions and how you felt, the missing step was ‘‘implementing that into daily conversation’’.
Franklin thinks the older generation didn’t get much education on the topic of mental health – and that these messages are not reinforced enough now either, especially for senior year students.
‘‘We want youth in this region to be more comfortable talking about mental health, and for parents and teachers to be more open to talking about mental health,’’ he said.
‘‘Hopefully, it will spread out across New Zealand.’’
Candlish said the stigma around mental health issues could tend to ‘‘shut down’’ discussion.
Attitudes around masculinity might not be helpful either, the idea that ‘‘you have got to be a man, you can’t have that, and you’re going to keep going and not look back’’, when it came to expressing feelings.
‘‘Some people don’t realise that maybe talking about it will actually help them,’’ he said.
What parents and caregivers needed to know was that youth were ‘‘still vulnerable’’, Franklin said
‘‘We still need to be checked up on.’’
Martin said it was nice to be able to give back something to the community, and to play their part in preventing mental health problems.
‘‘We have friends and family [and] it’s not very pleasant seeing them suffer from mental health [difficulties]. So yeah, knowing that we can do something is really good.’’
The students are also grateful they’ve had the support of sponsorship from One Forty One, Craigs Investment Partners, Sport Tasman, Gibbons, NBS and RISE.
Latta will speak at Nelson College Hall on Tuesday, September 20, from 7pm-8.30pm. Tickets are $20 and are available from speakitup.nz or from the Nelson College finance office.