Wellness Walls coming to Catholic schools
Idea is to make students more aware, supportive of others
A pilot project by Pathstone to educate students about various mental health issues through what it calls Wellness Walls is being rolled out to all Niagara Catholic schools this year.
Pathstone Mental Health piloted the project in six schools in the Town of Lincoln for four months beginning in January and at the community’s Fleming Centre.
The idea was to roll it out to more schools if the project was found effective.
“Kits were shipped yesterday to head office and they’ll be distributed to all (Niagara Catholic District School Board) schools, 59 in all,” said Kim Rossi, Pathstone’s director of philanthropy and public relations, on Friday.
The Wellness Walls are removable vinyl decal pieces that are put up on a wall in a main traffic area in a school. There are four themes throughout the year — back to school stress and anxiety, bullying, seasonal affective disorder and mental health and wellness.
The idea is to encourage students to support each other, take action and be leaders in mental wellness at school.
Rossi came up with the Wellness Wall idea after her daughter came home from school after Pink Shirt Day, which was supposed to raise awareness about anti-bullying, and felt a learning opportunity had been lost.
Each wall includes statistics on the mental health theme, presenting sponsors and a QR code students can scan that takes them to a video with more information on that specific topic.
Bonus features include student-created videos, such as one on anxiety, and an online survey.
Students are also invited to put encouraging messages on the wall using the colourful Post-it notes and markers that are included with the wall kit.
While the walls are going up in elementary and secondary schools, Rossi said the content is different and age-appropriate. A video with the high school walls touches on suicide, for instance, while the elementary one does not.
Feedback was sought from teachers, principals, child and youth workers, the community centre and others after the pilot project. Based on that input, statistics were updated and colour palettes of the themes were changed up for the expanded project.
“It was minor changes, but it definitely made for a better wall,” Rossi said.
The District School Board of Niagara was invited to participate but Rossi said it chose not to go forward with the project this year due to other initiatives.