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Kaylee Noyes

Mrs. Martin

Critical Discourse

19 December 2017

Proposal

According to The National Institute of Mental Health, 1 in 5 high school age students

will get diagnosed with a mental illness. The main goal of this proposal is to create awareness in

the high school, not only of mental health, but the resources out there to help people who need

it. At Platte County High School, many students feel that the administration do the bare

minimum on mental health awareness and suicide prevention. The 1 required day of suicide

prevention was made a joke of by students as well as staff. I would like to create a plan to set

aside a PLC day, to suicide prevention and mental health awareness. This day would be devoted

to making sure that students not only know that mental health disorders are totally okay to have,

but also that there are people you can talk to, who can actually help, unlike how the school says

theyll help you.

Over the past 4 years of attending Platte County High School, I only ever remember

being given a suicide prevention curriculum this year. This could have just started this year, or I

could have been given a presentation 3 other years, and not remembered any of it. Why?

Because the presentations the school provides are the state minimum, they are not willing to put

in the money, nor the time to create a decent program that might actually help their students.

This is a real problem because having a school with students who dont know how to deal with

their mental health problems can lead to increased suicide rate. Suicide is a real problem in
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America, as well as the world and school is a big identifier if a student will have problems in

their life. How much of our happiness is fueled by societies validation of our choices? It seems

that the younger we are, the more dependent we are on making choices others will value and

praise --perhaps because we havent developed, or dont yet fully trust, our ability to name or

even know what makes us happy (Fagan, Kate. 191). Teens in high school nowadays are very

caring of how others see them and what other people think of them. This is awful on a growing

teenagers mind because theyll start to associate their sense of self-worth with likes on a picture,

but if those likes dont come, they get depression and start to rack their mind on what they did

wrong. Teens are so worried about what people think of them, it starts to take a deeper toll on

them, mentally. According to USA Today, There is a seasonality to suicide, said Dr. Gregory

Plemmons, the lead author on the study. If you look at adult data, most adults tend to commit

suicide in summer and the spring, we noticed that our biggest time (for children) was in the

fall. Relating to that statistic, kids are more likely to commit suicide during school season. This

is a dangerous statistic for schools because without a good backbone of suicide prevention, it

will let the more vulnerable students slip through. I want to create a day to help those students,

who are slipping through the cracks, dedicated to them, even if their problem isnt obvious to

their classmates. One study found that an average high school student today likely deals with

as much anxiety as did a psychiatric patient in the 1950s. (Fagan, Kate. 203). Theres no

wonder there is such an increased precedence of mental illness and suicidal rates. As seen in the

chart below, in the 15-24 age group, there were 5,941 suicides in 2015. Making suicide the 2nd

leading cause of death in that age group. In comparison, the age group 10-14, suicide is the 3rd

leading cause of death. These children are in middle school and their freshman year of high

school, and already feel like killing themselves is the only option for them. For them its too
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late, but for the students who have these feelings later, in high school years, we need to have a

good curriculum to help these students before its too late.

After doing my inquiry research I realized how real mental illness really is and how you

truly never know who is suffering from what disorder. Mental illness is hard to understand

because you cant see it. If someone broke their leg, youd feel sorry because you can see it, but

if someone were to try to kill themselves you wouldnt feel sorry because you couldnt see the

underlying causes that made them do it. So going on this, I found myself in a cohort with 6

other people with the same overall topic. We came up with an idea of taking a PLC, and using

that to talk about mental health awareness and suicide prevention. The main portion of the day

would be to have someone come from one grade who suffers from a mental illness and have

them talk to the school. Wed definitely want to talk about the alternative medicine and ways to

help mental health problems if you


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cant go to the doctor and get help yourself. And then wed have a guest speaker from outside of

the school come and talk also. The main reason for this is, we want everyone to see that people

can overcome mental illness, and that suicide thoughts arent forever. Its a bad day not a bad

life, and nothing is worth losing your life over in the long run. On top of the speakers and

alternative medicine, wed incorporate places to go if you needed help as well as what to do if

your friend or loved one needed help. Wed be working to provide the students with

information and ways to help with depression and anxiety. We understand that everyone in high

school goes through something different and each thing affects us differently. As a collective

group, we are here to let everyone at Platte County High School know that it is socially

acceptable to feel these things and to ask for help. It doesnt matter who you are or what you

look like. We hope to provide help and real life encounters to let people grow and thrive on

their own.

According to the AFSP, The annual age-adjusted suicide rate is 13.26 per 100,000

individuals. and In 2015, adolescents and young adults aged 15 to 24 had a suicide rate of

12.5. The rate of suicide is way too high, there is no reason for 12.5% of high school aged

individuals to commit suicide, that is heartbreaking. Although, we as a cohort know that the

day were trying to make happen might be hard to sit through for some people, we want to

reiterate that it is okay to have a mental illness and we understand if people get angry and think

that this day isnt going to help anyone. According to the Parent Research Program, Each day

in our nation, there are an average of over 3,470 attempts by young people grades 9-12. If these

percentages are additionally applied to grades 7 & 8, the numbers would be higher. I want

restate that 3,470 teens are attempting to end their life every single day. These kids are the ones

that we hope this program will help and change the life of.
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Overall, we want to appeal to the students needs so the first PLC day we try this, wed

definitely do a randomized survey of how they thought the day went. When everyone had filled

out a survey, wed sit down and go over what needs to change and what needs to stay the same

to continue to have a good impact on the student body. Our slogan for this project is proactive

not reactive, the main purpose for this whole day isnt just to bash the schools program already

in use, but instead to actually change the lives of people. At the end of the day, no amount of

money can bring a child back from the dead, and if spending a little extra on suicide prevention

in school can help a child realize they do have people caring for them and that there is help out

there, its totally worth the extra cost and time out of a couple PLC days.

Works Cited

FAGAN, KATE. WHAT MADE MADDY RUN: the Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an

All-American Teen. BACK BAY BOOKS LITTLE BRN, 2018.

Merz, Thomas. PDF in HTML Pages. Web Publishing with Acrobat/PDF, 1998, pp. 145

173., doi:10.1007/978-3-642-72032-1_8.

Suicide. National Institute of Mental Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,

www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide/index.shtml.

Suicide Statistics AFSP. AFSP, afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/.

Youth Suicide Statistics. Parent Resource Program, prp.jasonfoundation.com/facts/youth-

suicide-statistics/.

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