Raising awareness about youth mental health

By Sean Feagan, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Strathmore’s young philanthropist Emma Moore is launching a campaign to raise awareness about youth mental health and generate funds for support services in the community.

For her 16th birthday, Moore is launching Change for Youth Mental Health, a project that is aimed at reducing the stigma around mental health issues faced by young people and raising money to make more counselling available to local youth. The project runs between Feb. 7 and March 15, 2021.

Many young people in the community face issues and want help, but do not know what is out there, explained Moore. While area schools offer support, many young people want to seek help outside of school.

“If your friends are asking for help, you don’t really know where to direct them if you don’t know what resources are available,” she noted.

Moore is launching the project to bring awareness so that youth know what mental health services are available in the community.

“It’s trying to help people find those extra resources if they need them.”

Part of the project is a GoFundMe campaign (gofund.me/c6e9636d) with the goal of raising $5,000. The funds will be donated to the Family School Community Resource Counselling Services with Golden Hills School Division, and the Wheatland Youth Network (WYN), an organization looking to provide integrated mental health services for youth and young adults in the community.

Area schools are partnering with their own projects to bring awareness. Both École Brentwood Elementary and Westmount Elementary will be selling suckers the week of Feb. 22 to 26 as part of the campaign.

Moore is also looking for local businesses to partner and help spread the word.

Besides her own humanitarian actions, Moore is a member of the WYN youth subcommittee, which is considering the mental health needs of youth in the committee and how they should be delivered.

“We’ve been brainstorming different ideas that we could do to put the next steps in motion,” she said. The group is looking for more members to participate in the subcommittee.

The time is now to promote mental health, noted Moore.

“Because of COVID, a lot of people I’m around have really struggled.”