This week at Elizabethtown College, Student Wellness organized a mental health awareness week, titled MIND Your Health, which offered  a number of different events designed to help bring awareness to the importance of mental health. Mental health is important to keeping students happy and productive, but unlike other aspects of well-being, students may often forget that mental health is just as important.

When students forget to take care of themselves psychologically, it can grow into something that affects other aspects of their health and eventually everyday life. Through the activities they ran, Student Wellness hopes to make the Etown community more aware of the importance of mental health has on everyone.

The week kicked off on Monday, Sept. 15, when a suicide awareness table set up outside the BSC from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The spokesperson at the table explained how to recognize if someone may be contemplating suicide and what hotlines are available, as well as the counseling services available on campus.  The table also had a wheel students could spin and win a prize upon answering a question correctly.

Amanda Cheetham, a health educator for Student Wellness and Health Promotion, and Dr. Bruce Lynch, the Director of Student Wellness, were eager to discuss the different activities that took place during the week and explain the importance of mental health. According to Lynch, this is the first time that Etown has ever done an event like this.

Student Wellness offered free mental health screenings to students on Tuesday. These screenings were designed so that anyone who wants to talk to a counselor has the ability to visit the counselors has on staff without an appointment.

The counselors were there to help identify anxiety, depression, alcohol-related problems, eating disorders and PTSD, among other issues. Lynch stressed the importance of confidentiality and didn’t want anyone to feel discouraged from others finding out about their visit. He also hopes that those who did go will feel comfortable coming back again if they feel they need further help.

As part of mental health awareness week, Student Wellness started a program called WRAP, which stands for Wellness Recovery Action Plan. It will take place for three Wednesdays, the first of which occurred on the Sept. 17 at 11 a.m. The WRAP events are designed to create a plan which will develop self-awareness by noticing the symptoms of anxiety and help develop and improve student’s coping skills. This self-awareness can then be used to manage the issues students learned to be aware of.

On the same day, outside the BSC, Student Wellness also provided an activity called Positive Postcards, in which students were able to create postcards with positive quotes and messages. The notes were all sent to random students’ mailboxes, hopefully brightening up those students’ days.

The last event that Student Wellness held for mental health awareness week was on Friday, Sept. 12 outside the BSC, which involved a make-your-own stress kit activity. During this event, students had the ability to create a stress ball and participate in other fun activities to relieve stress.

Cheetham explained that there are several different awareness days around this time of year, such as suicide awareness day, which occurred on Wednesday, Sept. 10, but Student Wellness wanted to make it a universal week of awareness for mental health. Cheetham believes that scheduling it when they did was perfect, because by talking about mental health early in the semester, it helps students become conscious of it and identify issues early on.

This could become very useful around hectic times, such as midterms and finals when students become stressed due to studying and worrying about classes and exams. During that time, students are prone to neglecting themselves and their health.

Lynch also mentioned the various activities that Student Wellness will be having throughout the semester: in October, there will be activities relating to Sexual Assault Awareness month. Later in October, they will also hold discussions about alcohol abuse and how it can be identified and resolved. Throughout the semester there will be several different counseling groups ranging in topics from mental health to first-year homesickness. They will meet on different days throughout the week, most in the afternoon, and are open to all students.