This is a month of transition into summer schedules and new experiences. In June, I look forward to visiting Yellowstone for biking and rafting. Sometime t his summer,  I hope you have an opportunity to enjoy  one or more of  three things I did this month:  

1) See an art installation with wellness as a theme.

Newton Wellesley Hospital is an unlikely place for an art installation but two high school students chose it for their senior project. They reviewed responses to questions about mental health, like 'What does wellness mean to you', to inspire their creative writing and visual art pieces. Check out the compelling works by Alexa Marcasciano and Matthew Tom located in the south corridor. 

2) Practice creative problem solving. I was invited to help, along with Donna Luther, the extremely creative head of the Inly School of Scituate, MA during the recent Parent    Professional Advocacy League conference. We taught youth balancing the weight of major worries to use t he PIP Problems-Ideas-Plans model

(email  me if you would like a copy of the PIP  lesson plan  and worksheet).

3) Help with a Rotary wellness project. I introduced a depression  and  suicide prevention program to the Rotary club of Bedford.  A friend  with a second home in Montana  asked for ideas to help her  community there  address the topic.The  Rotary locator  confirmed there are Rotary  clubs near her community so I hope to visit one before I finish my  Yellowstone tour to talk about the wellness project launched by clubs in Massachusetts and Puerto Rico.

The medical professionals say it this way, "Promotion of good mental health, preventive measures, early recognition and adequate treatment of people with mental disorders are the key measures in avoiding depression and its complications such as suicide (Wahlbeck K. & Mäkinen M. (Eds). 2008 Prevention of depression and suicide).

Why Puerto Rico? 

This year the Rotary Foundation and the Rotary clubs of Wellesley and San Juan partnered with Interact peer leaders to deliver  Break Free From Depression  to over 700 students in grades 7-12.

The were measured by Boston Children's Hospital through changes in survey responses collected before and after the 3 hour curriculum supplement.  Improvements for students in  Puerto Rico were 146% in Knowledge and 32% in Help-seeking while Wellesley  students improved 77% in Knowledge and 97% in Help seeking. Both groups improved negative attitude over 9%. 

A  psychologist at one school, Esther Mariae Perez Prado , says her students will create multi-lingual video clips as supplements to introduce the resource into other schools.  She wrote, "... Given the tangible benefits resulting from this curriculum, we are excited to offer it to our students (10th and 11th grades) again this coming school year. We want to expand and strengthen the  wellbeing of our youth-in our school, across the island and beyond. As part of this, we believe that video clips produced in both English and Spanish would help extend the scope and reach of this project. These clips would include our students describing topics they learned about through their participating in the Break Free From Depression program, such as the importance of mental health for their general wellbeing; where and how to find help; and destigmatizing the taboos related to mental health, among others."

The supplemental video clips from San Juan will help US schools better  communicate the Boston Children's Hospital curriculum to all parents. They also illustrate that any community can choose to prevent depression.