Mental wellness
Importance of mental wellness highlighted by student-led efforts at NKEC
It’s time to start recognizing and promoting the importance of mental wellness in our schools.
Kevin Veinot, principal at Northeast Kings Education Centre in Canning, said former student Stephanie Hutt suggested last year the school begin holding a Mental Wellness Week.
Last spring, a group of four students took on the challenge of organizing activities and initiatives for the wellness week. They include Grade 9 students Roman Javorek and Jessica Spencer and Grade 12 students Megané Rand and Katherine Waterbury.
Running from Oct. 3-7, each day of the week carried a different theme. Students signed pledges on chalkboards each day and enjoyed healthy snacks and water.
Rand said it’s actually quite common to suffer from anxiety or other forms of mental illness.
“We need to spread awareness and say that it’s okay and that it’s not so uncommon,” Rand said. “We just need to focus on how to really connect with yourself and to know your boundaries and know how to be emotionally healthy and how to be mentally healthy and physically healthy.”
Rand said a lot of time and effort went into planning the week’s activities, with several meetings and brainstorming sessions. She said it was great seeing the student body and school staff getting involved and reacting so positively to the initiatives.
Waterbury thinks the message is getting across. Stigma surrounding people with mental illnesses still lingers, she said, and not much attention gets paid to the subject in school. She likes the idea of delving deeper into aspects of mental health and how to stay mentally healthy.
“I think we need to talk about it more to help everyone live a better, happier life,” Waterbury said.
Peer pressure is strong for students at the middle and high school levels and this can be stressful, she added. Social media can add another level of stress that students a generation ago didn’t have to deal with.
“There’s so much stress. I have to look a certain way, I have to act a certain way, I have to feel a certain way,” Waterbury said.
There was a Social Wellness Day Oct. 3, which saw students paint colourful messages on picnic tables. For Spiritual Wellness Day Oct. 4, yoga was held in the gym and Mi’kmaq smudging ceremonies were performed. Physical Wellness Day Oct. 5 featured skating at the Glooscap and District Arena, soccer games and basketball games.
For emotional wellness day Oct. 6, there was a screening of the movie Inside Out and visits from therapy dogs. A wrap-up assembly was held Oct. 7.
Students were encouraged to take the lessons learned home and find ways to apply them.
“The biggest thing that we’re trying to get through is that it’s not just this one week that you can do this,” Waterbury said. “You can apply it to your whole life and practice all of these things throughout your life to stay healthy.”
Smudging ceremony
As part of spiritual wellness day at NKEC Oct. 4, Mi’kmaq elder Lorraine Whitman conducted smudging ceremonies for middle and high school students.
Whitman said it was important to her to facilitate the ceremonies because “the youth are our future.”
“It’s important for everyone to recognize and appreciate and respect each individual and their culture for what we have,” she said, pointing out that we live in a multi-cultural society.
Whitman said the smudging ceremony is about cleansing one’s mind, body and soul. It’s about growth, clarity and having positive energy so that we can put what we speak, see and hear in the proper perspective.