Teaching About Mental Health Resource

A Brief Introduction to Teaching About Mental Health

These films – and this guide – do not attempt to provide a comprehensive or exhaustive course on mental health. But because they do address complex, and sometimes intense, topics around mental health, it is important to provide context, background, and have access to additional support and resources if necessary. 

Therefore, in addition to the activities in this guide, we recommend exploring this supplementary resource from the Mental Health Coalition, The Roadmap to Mental Health. This Roadmap provides additional information about mental wellness, including language, behaviors, and treatment solutions that will help students understand the basics about mental health and apply their learning to mental health topics.

You can access the Roadmap here or at https://www.thementalhealthcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/MHC_Roadmap_16-9_R2-1.pdf

Fostering Peer Leadership in the Classroom 

In order to foster empathy between students and teachers, we recommend that, as much as possible, the conversations and activities from the Creative Coping Toolkit be peer led. To ensure success, we suggest reviewing some basic facilitation skills with students, including our Principles for Conversation (via: Welcome Guide), before allowing them to take leadership. 

Consider using these principles as a starting point and then creating a shared google document where students and educators can co-create their own classroom or school code of kindness, highlighting shared core values in advance of the sessions. 

We also recommend students record their reflections, key takeaways, and future action steps for each exercise. This will help them retain information and create lasting impact, as they can refer back to tools, strategies, and lessons that will be helpful to them in the future.