Student project promotes mental health hotline
The DECA club at J.P. Taravella High School in Coral Springs wants their fellow students to know that they’re not alone.
If they’re dealing with relationship problems, family issues, academic pressure, mental illness or anything else that comes up, they don’t have to say aword out loud— they can just send a message from their phone to the Crisis Text Line at any time to connect with a trained volunteer. The hotline’s largest group of users is 25 and under, according to Crisis Trends.
Along with advisors Jamie Simmons and Laurie Acosta, finance and marketing teachersvella’ s DEC A program, juniors Samantha K aye, Spencer Gore lick and Kevin Ward led their fellow students in launching the Here 2 Help project to promote the Crisis Text Line, starting at the beginning of the 2016-17 school year.
“Up until now there hasn’t been any exposure across the country at the high school level,” Simmons said. “They’re partnering with seven or eight colleges but we’re the first school systemto adopt the Crisis Text Line.”
The DECA club found that students didn’t know where to find support for life issues cropping up as they come of age.
“To a teenager, grades or a broken heart can be the end of the world,” said Acosta, whose cousin volunteers for the Crisis Text Line. “As adults we know these things might not be so huge, butt oa teenager who doesn’ t know who to turn to, the results can be dire.”
Throughout the course of the year, the students increased awareness of the Crisis Text Line by 90 percent according to surveys they conducted. They promoted the nonprofit through social media, inclass presentations and and hanging posters throughout their school.
“We knew our project had the potential to make it far,” Ward said.
In May, the Taravella group earned a prize in the Lead 2 Feed Challenge, an initiative by the Foundation for Impact on Literacy and Learning and the Lift a Life Foundation, with assistance from the Yum! Foundation. Lead 2 Feed provides guidance and lesson plans for young leaders across the nation and awards grants to winning projects. $2,000 will go toward technology grants for the school and $5,000 will go directly to the CrisisText Line.
The students expressed gratitude for the recognition and the funding, but they didn’t stop there. Here 2 Help is now focused on expanding awareness of the Crisis Text Line to all students in Broward County and beyond. They’ve also been recruiting volunteers for the hotline to meet the increased demand. Superintendent Robert Runcie hasworked with the Here 2 Help team, encouraging them to present the project at a Broward County School Board workshop.
This was new territory for the group .“Students appear at meetings but never come in when working through a proposal ,” Kaye said.
On June 14, the board voted to adopt and promote the Crisis Text Line in Broward County middle and high schools.
“We really needed to share it with the county and our school and everyone,” Gorelick said.
kplacide@tronc.com