The Art of Awareness with the CWU Bateman Team
"Change the way we talk about mental health."
The 2017 CWU Bateman team partnered with with Campaign to Change Direction and Give an Hour to promote mental health awareness among Central Washington students, staff, and community members.
For a lot of people, having a conversation about mental health makes them uncomfortable. Given, it's not an easy topic to speak about. But our Bateman team (Hunter Ventoza, Meghan Lynch, Nikki Christopherson, Taylor Castillo, and the help of Professor Kevin Brett) did a job well done of initiating a campus and community-wide conversation about mental health.
The team skillfully planned out a week-long event series to focus on the five signs of mental health disorders.
personality change.
agitated.
withdrawals.
poor self-care.
hopelessness.
On Day 2 of Bateman week, I attended their "Sticks and Stones" event, where I was able to grab a cup of coffee between classes, write about what stresses me out (if you couldn't already guess - it's my workload!), and I made the pledge to know the five signs.
The team did an excellent job of raising awareness of the five signs and influencing people to engage in conversations they aren't necessarily the most comfortable with. Because of this, I hope everyone, including myself, will have more courage to openly talk about mental health.