Teen Balance by Heaven Reynolds
The Republican Journal Article
BELFAST — Teenage life can be hard, and no one is alone when it comes to the challenges with mental health. Adolescence is crucial for developing social and emotional habits for mental wellbeing.
Belfast Area High School clinical social worker Nadejda (Dej) Stancioff said, “A study was made after COVID-19 that 44% of high school-aged students reported sadness and hopelessness. Twenty percent reported suicidal related thoughts…. Less than 0.2% of 100% of self-harm-related challenges do it for attention.”
The BAHS Student Senate advocated making a full-time opening to advocate and support mental wellbeing throughout the school years. Prior to being a clinical social worker, Stanicoff was an advocate for domestic violence and teen dating violence.
This is only one support within the school that students seek out in need of help with their wellbeing or someone else’s.
With the stress of managing school, extracurricular activities, work, social media and friends, anyone’s life can get chaotic.
Students weigh in on support within the school community.
Junior Olivia Blood said, “I think BAHS is a supportive environment with mental health challenges because we have many resources to help the students who need it.”
BAHS supports students, but do the students know it’s there?
“I believe that the students have the resources to reach out and find help, but some don’t want to or feel scared to,” Olivia said. “BAHS has amazing ways to help students and support them, but it’s the students who don’t want to reach out.”
Junior Jayna Relyea said, “I think it is hard for students to reach out for help because everyone is a mandated reporter, so they censor what they’re struggling with.”
One definite impact on wellbeing: social media.
BAHS senior Kiya Bowles said, “I feel social media can definitely have an influence on mental health. With social media, we’re more likely to be sucked into our devices and end up lacking social skills which would make socializing harder.”
Hannah Emerson, a senior at BCOPE, said, “Social media has a massive impact on mental health, from feeling amazing to destroying someone’s confidence and sense of self.”
Olivia noted that “most of the bullying that happens now is online and kids can not get away from it as easily.”
BAHS freshman Tyrone Anderson said, “People can hide behind a screen and say anything and get away with it.”
Stanicoff explained that “mental health is the wellbeing of our mind, body and spirit. All are impacted by social media influence.”
So, how do students define mental health?
Bowles said, “I believe mental health is more or less an umbrella term for our overall health that isn’t physical. It affects a wide variety of things; how we think, act, control, how we manage our feelings, how we interact with others, and overall how our brain works.”
As we all can come up with a definition of mental health, do students choose to use this to their advantage or hide behind it?
BAHS junior Caden Nickerson said, “People definitely try to hide their mental health just because it’s one of those things where we grow up saying mental health isn’t normal and that having a mental health issue isn’t good…”
Tyrone observed that “most students choose not to go and get help.