Ladies First Mission
Ladies First is a girls empowerment group at Daniel Webster Middle School, we meet weekly to empower and lift each other up.
We aspire to promote positivity, girls empowerment and college access within our community.
The mission of this project is to bring greater awareness, to the mental and physical health of middle school students. We will accomplish this by creating a school-wide campaign, through posters, activities and having a school-wide assembly. Members of Ladies First will teach students stress relieving and coping skills through exercise and dance. Finally we will teach students how to create slime and stress balls.
We aspire to promote positivity, girls empowerment and college access within our community.
The mission of this project is to bring greater awareness, to the mental and physical health of middle school students. We will accomplish this by creating a school-wide campaign, through posters, activities and having a school-wide assembly. Members of Ladies First will teach students stress relieving and coping skills through exercise and dance. Finally we will teach students how to create slime and stress balls.
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Project Need
The members of Ladies First will address the problems of academic and social pressures surrounding middle school students. This project will focus on anxiety, poor coping skills, and poor self-esteem among middle school students. Research shows that a high number of middle school students face social challenges, and are not equipped with the needed tools to endure such challenges. Research also shows that 1 in 5 adolescents will face a significant mental health condition during their academic career. A few mental health disorders affecting students are depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, schizophrenia and eating disorders. Such disorders affect students’ ability to learn and function on a daily basis. Our project need to address physical and mental health is aligned with the impact of area of health and wellness.
Process During the month of April, we conducted our annual Mental and Physical Health series. We held multiple workshops on how to create different types of stress balls. We discussed different ways to address stress, anxiety, and depression. We played games such as feelings in a jar, and choices in a jar with our peers. This allowed students to express and reflect on their feelings. We also conducted yoga and breathing exercises.
Planning for our different events began in September 2018. With permission from our school Principal Ms. Mason, we began our planning and setting dates. Our goal was to provide mental health resources and support to students. we wanted to provide students with a safe space to express their feelings and emotions. We conducted research and read articles on teen depression, teen stress and the different changes happening to the brain during adolescence. As a team we researched how important it is to address school mental health and for adolescents to have the support they need. Adolescents spend a majority of their day in school versus anywhere else. In the weeks leading up to the different events we made weekly school wide announcements during the morning announcements. We made posters, flyers and banners, to place around campus in an effort to spread the word about our different events. We took pictures and recorded videos to document our different events. Our Coordinator Ms. Fields, meet with school faculty members and the school’s plant manager to coordinate logistics for different events. |
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Outcomes
Our school-wide project allowed the student body at Daniel Webster Middle School, the opportunity to learn more about mental health and the different coping skills to contest anxiety and other mental health factors. A short-term outcome of our mental and physical health series, is that students learned more about mental health. More awareness was raised regarding mental health and the stigmas surrounding having a counselor and receiving therapy. Students gained an abundance of knowledge related to coping strategies and processing different type of feelings and emotions.
We were able to provide our peers the opportunity to make over 500 stress balls. We hope that the long term outcome of our school-wide project, is that the student body will apply the knowledge and skills learned during our mental health series to their daily lives. We hope that students will be more kind and reach out to one another, while recognizing the signs of anxiety and depression in other peers. This is our last year at Daniel Webster Middle School, we hope that the incoming Ladies First members will carry on the tradition of focusing on mental and physical health.
We were able to provide our peers the opportunity to make over 500 stress balls. We hope that the long term outcome of our school-wide project, is that the student body will apply the knowledge and skills learned during our mental health series to their daily lives. We hope that students will be more kind and reach out to one another, while recognizing the signs of anxiety and depression in other peers. This is our last year at Daniel Webster Middle School, we hope that the incoming Ladies First members will carry on the tradition of focusing on mental and physical health.
Quantitative Examples
Approximately 300 students attended our different “Emoji Stress Ball” making workshops, 200 students participated in our “Denim Day… A Call to Action”, and 20 students participated in our yoga activities. Through surveys and verbal mental health games, we were able to collect student responses to what provoke them to experience stress, anxiety and depression. Student responses reflected what students did to cope with their feelings, who they could confide in ,and what were their safe spaces.
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Qualitative Examples
Students were provided with surveys to complete, containing 10 multiple-choice questions. The questions related to safety, feelings, coping skills and behavior. Student responses collectively were positive regarding the Mental Health fair. Students were receptive to completing the survey. Many students had similar feelings about school safety, school stress, bullying, and coping strategies. Through observation we noticed that many students bonded during this activity. We had large turn-outs during our Emoji Stress Ball workshops. Students enjoyed making the stress balls, and requested that we continue to hold the workshops through the remainder of the semester. Students enjoyed having the option to choose a colored balloon to reflect their emotions. Students asked if were going to put this activity on every month. Students asked how they could become a part of our project. Students provided feedback in our testimonial/reflection video.
Reflection
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Daniel Webster Middle School 11330 Graham Pl Los Angeles, CA 90064 |
Daniel Webster Middle School (310) 235-4600 CIS Site Director Tylyn Fields (310) 235-4621 |
www.webstermiddle.org www.cislosangeles.org |
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