Ruyton Girls’ School students are leading the way to support and improve mental health issues

ruyton girls school

The Ruyton Student Council’s (RSC’s) main project last year was to come up with solutions to improve mental health in our School community. Early in the year, as a council, we focused on mental health initiatives, as social media and other societal pressures often erode girls’ mental health and wellbeing.

As a team we decided to create a mental health and wellbeing portal on the student website, which contains a diverse range of resources that can be accessed anywhere, anytime and, most importantly, in private. The aim of the portal is to provide information in a succinct manner to enable a student’s understanding of sometimes complex issues.

Firstly, we identified the major stresses in each of our lives, which varied across year levels, and then we came up with potential solutions to help us gain information on what is still a relatively taboo subject. A Mental Health and Wellbeing Student Portal on the Intranet was developed, with advice from our School Counsellor and IT, to provide options for girls experiencing issues in their lives and to prevent overwhelming situations going unchecked. All girls are able to use this resource, as it has been designed by students for students and follows a user-friendly format.

The portal is accessible easily to students  and if there is uncertainty in describing what it is that is causing panic, the Next Step app is the place to start, as it provides a series of topics to check what the root of the problem is. The cover page is divided into ‘looking for help for myself’ and ‘looking for help for a friend.’ Within each of these folders there are links to different websites with information and support networks, for example ReachOut and beyondblue. We also added a section with different Mindfulness apps in order to help improve mental health. Our aim is to provide de-stressing activities that can be accessed at all times.

The RSC hopes that the Mental Health and Wellbeing Student Portal is useful and that it grows and develops over time, supporting the mental health of our School community and placing resources at the fingertips of all our students.

Tash Borash, RSC Captain (2017)

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