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Mental Health: Led by Hung Wei & Dr. Clifton Der Bing

The YAPA Mental Health advocacy group has conducted a variety of projects since August aiming to research and improve mental health conditions and access to wellness resources for Bay Area high school students.

Among these endeavors was a community-wide wellness survey in early September designed by the group and promoted through social media. The survey focused on topics like academic, social and familial stressors, substance and alcohol use, and access to wellness resources at school. It ultimately garnered over 300 responses, allowing Mental Health group  members to analyze areas that could use improvement and  discuss potential policy solutions... read more

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We conducted a

BAY AREA STUDENT WELLNESS SURVEY

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Over half of

respondents reported

feeling stressed or

distressed about

their mental health a

great deal or moderately.

Respondents who reported feeling

more stressed or distressed about their mental health tended to report feeling less supported by school staff other than teachers.

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Who are we?

  • Students from a variety of high schools

    • Monta Vista, Saratoga, Branham, Washington, and more

  • Passionate about making lasting and beneficial change to school wellness policy 

  • What we’ve been doing

    • Gathered background knowledge about high school wellness resources

    • Researched policy solutions to improve the accessibility and quality of these resources

260 respondents

Our policy proposals

Speakers and advisors

  • Haley Giniger 

    • Mental Health Counselor 

  • Richard Prinz

    • School-based therapist at Monta Vista High School

  • Patrick Ahrens

    • Board Member at Foothill College

  • Clifton Der Bing

    • Campus psychologist at Foothill College

  • Permanent implementation of advisory period

  • Set curriculum for required advisory period surrounding wellness topics 

    • Meditation / Mindfulness

    • Stigma surrounding Mental Health

    • Interpersonal Mindfulness

    • Substance Abuse

    • Self care / coping skills

    • Roadmap for Future life

    • Tips for how to get help and what help looks like

  • Requiring academic counselor checkups on students

    • Preferably yearly, but at least once or twice during four years of high school

    • Mandatory if student has not reached out to counselor for one-on-one at some point

  • Having a semesterly wellness survey to check up on students

    • Mandatory, but students don’t have to fill out every question

    • Can also link resources like hotlines, crisis text lines, fact sheets etc. to make them more accessible

    • Created by staff to maximize quality of answers

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