Teens under the bridge

Make all students feel that our school is a welcoming space. Know where to go for help and support if needed. Create a lunch time club for teens in need.

Our Social Issue

The issue of teenagers not fitting in in school and experiencing loneliness, stress and anxiety. We anted to explore the topic of youth mental health.

Why We Chose It

We did the A to Z of social issues in class and held a democratic class vote. After that it was clear that the class wanted to focus on the youth and in particular mental health. We feel passionately about this topic as we are all young students and several people in the class had either experienced feelings of isolation or knew of other classmates who had and we were excited to come up with strategies of how we could explore this.

Our Goal

The big idea to hope to achieve with this project is to tackle teenagers and their loneliness and feelings of isolation and sadness in school. We wanted to create a safe sanctuary for students at lunchtime to hang out and a more positive start to the day for students with the motivational quotes at roll call. The goal was to ensure that students know who to talk to in the school ( teacher/ year heads/ counsellor) if they are struggling and to make helplines and useful websites more accessible to them.

Our Innovative Action

We surveyed our students to find out the extent of the problem with youth mental health. Based on that information we diverse a 3 point plan. First we created motivational quotes for our jars for distribution to all of the base classes in the school. Secondly we launched a lunch time club under or project heading “ Teens under the bridge” to run once a week. Thirdly we increase awareness of youth mental health in our school by making a notice board, using posters, addressing assemblies and using the schools social media.

Our Impact

We have opened up the conversation about youth mental health in the school. Our motivational quotes ensure that each student gets a positive start to the day. Our lunchtime club make a positive difference to those that attend it by providing them with a safe space away from normal school stresses. We have empowered students to take charge of their own mental health by providing them with them with all of the information they need to access any addition supports they need.