Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Number State
1. Prepare Phase
OPENING REMARKS:
The information provided in previous lessons may make it sound like our mental health is
something that is completely out of our control. Thankfully, that is not the case. There are
many things that we as individuals can do for ourselves and there are steps we can take to
help friends and others close to us. This is called mental health prevention. It’s
important to know that some behaviors will risk our mental health while others will
enhance it. Good mental health is important as it is a key to our physical health as
well.
If you don’t want to end up looking like this:
Or this:
Techniques such as yoga, exercise and relaxation (or down time) are essential to good
mental health. The good news is that much of our mental health is in our own hands and
today’s lesson will focus on what we can do and how to find community resources to
support ourselves and others.
Lesson Expectations
Understands the relationships among physical, mental, emotional, and social health
throughout adulthood.
Key Terms
Community health, a field within public health, is a discipline that concerns itself with
the study and betterment of the health characteristics of biological communities. While
the term community can be broadly defined, community health tends to focus on
geographic areas rather than people with shared characteristics.
The first step in mental health prevention is leading an active, healthy life. This means
staying away from smoking, drugs and alcohol. These three habits can lead to physical
health problems such as cancer, substance abuse and addiction. They are the most
important habits to avoid.
It is extremely important to be aware of the warning signs of the onset of depression
and other mental health issues. This is why we have identified them in previous
lessons.
Suicide prevention is the third pillar of mental health. If you, or anyone you know has
thoughts of suicide, it is important that you talk with someone immediately.
However, there are situations that are out of your control – such as divorce and parental
illness or death. These can cause tremendous stress and lead young people to engage in
risky behaviors such as drinking or taking drugs.
http://gtm-media.discoveryeducation.com/videos/22525/chp913732_256k.asf
In this first one what do you see as the connections between peer pressure and feeling
good?
What did the moderator say about balance that’s important to take note of?
http://gtm-media.discoveryeducation.com/videos/22525/chp913733_256k.asf
5. Which word best describes how you feel most of the time?
http://gtm-media.discoveryeducation.com/videos/22525/chp913734_256k.asf
http://gtm-media.discoveryeducation.com/videos/22525/chp913736_256k.asf
1. How does the doctor explain how we can life around for ourselves?
2. How can poor self-esteem affect someone’s life?
3. What did Felicia do to restore balance in her life?
4. How can patience and compassion help us?
EXERCISE
Think of your biggest problem and your biggest flaw – now imagine there’s a child with
that problem and you’re wise and can help – how do you help without hurting them?
Write a letter to yourself and provide compassionate advice.
http://gtm-media.discoveryeducation.com/videos/22525/chp913738_256k.asf
Important to note: what works for someone else will not necessarily work for you!
Now we move on to one of the most serious of issues – suicide prevention. Every year,
thousands of teenagers commit suicide for a wide range of reasons. Some of them include
undiagnosed mental illness, inability to cope with bullying and teasing, abuse at
home or at school. Please watch this video and look for the reasons why you think
young people would think of committing suicide.
EXERCISE
Write your own SUICIDE PREVENTION VIDEO – Create the characters and the
dialogue. If you want to have music overtop, write in the name of the song and
musicians. Remember, this is to tell other young people your age that committing suicide
is not the answer. But, also this video should address WHY young people consider
suicide. It can be 2-3 minutes in length. (one page = one minute).
One of the most important facts to know is: help and support is always available. For
anyone who copes with a mental illness or even mild depression, there is a great deal
of support out there for you. The key is to build a strong support network.
NOTE OF CAUTION:
There is a great deal of information available on the Internet, but not all of it is reliable.
It’s important to know the difference between reliable and unreliable information.
So here are some guidelines:
3. Be very careful about discussing your own or anyone else’s mental health issues
with people you don’t know, ESPECIALLY ON THE INTERNET. This can be
dangerous as people can take advantage of you. Your mental health issues should be
discussed only with appropriate people – your family, your doctor and your closest
friends (but the last one should be at great discretion).
1. Family
2. Family Doctor
3. Guidance Counselor at School
4. Local Chapter of the Mental Health Association
5. National Institute for Mental Health
These five levels are the key to getting the support you need at any time.
3. S ummariz e Phase
Understands the relationships among physical, mental, emotional, and social health
throughout adulthood.
4. As sessmen t Phase
Assignment
In an earlier exercise you designed your own suicide prevention video. Now, you’re
going to build on this by moving to the next level. You’re going to design a 10 minute
presentation to accompany the video. The presentation should highlight BUT NOT
REPEAT the points in the video. The presentation should also provide the following:
Extra Assignment
A friend comes to you and tells you that their parents are getting divorced. They’re very
upset about it but don’t know what to do. Using the information used in this lesson,
construct a dialogue between two friends where one tries to help the other. You can limit
this to 2 pages.