Lizzy Tsuang
Staff Writer
On average, one out of every four adolescents will have an episode of major depression during high school. Because of this, Costa’s People Attaining Complete Equality took the lead and designed an assembly solely for the purpose of educating students and promoting the prevention of depression.
On March 26, PACE held it’s first ever Depression and Suicide Awareness Assembly to feature guest speakers. The event was planned and coordinated by a committee of PACE members, led by head chair junior Brian Chao. A total of approximately 134 students attended the assembly.
“The assembly’s main purpose was to address the implications of both suicide and depression and educate students about the solutions available,” Chao said. “We wanted to give people an informative background surrounding both issues while also delivering poignant examples of what it feels like to suffer from depression and suicidal thoughts.”
The assembly featured two speakers, Richard Mogil from Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services and Ric Tennenbaum from Teen Line. Both organizations are local based, free and confidential suicide crisis hotlines that can be reached 24/7. The speakers shared personal experiences dealing with depression and suicide in an attempt to relate on a deeper level to the student audience and connect with each individual.
“We believe there is more to suicide prevention than just statistics,” Mogil said. “It is personal and the personal stories show that anyone can suffer depression and have thoughts of suicide. I hope the presentation was empowering for them, that they might have discovered ways to help others trying to cope with depression and suicidal thoughts.”
Speakers encouraged students to be more aware of the seriousness of suicide and depression. They centered a majority of the assembly towards the warning signals of suicide, ways of prevention and how to cope with depression or suicidal thoughts.
“Depression, anger, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, they all weigh so heavily on people,” Tennenbaum said. “They linger, build, and fester until they’re dealt with and they will exhaust a person endlessly until it seems like they are completely trapped and alone. You can’t fight that battle alone. My main goal through these outreaches is to show people by example that it’s okay to talk about suicide and depression, no matter how dark because if it’s presented earnestly with unfiltered honesty, the story demands respect. ”
PACE spread the word about the assembly by hanging posters around campus and notifying teachers. PACE worked to promote awareness and prevention of suicide and depression and help students seek help.
“Our goal with our assemblies is to touch on all social aspects that affect people at our school,” PACE member junior Lauren Irwin said. “Depression is a really important issue to be knowledgeable about, and since we haven’t done an assembly about it yet, we wanted to reach out to those who could benefit from it. We also wanted to educate people about how to be the support that their friends need and how to manage depression if it is affecting you.”
According to Chao, students can apply the speaker’s experiences to their everyday lives. Students can connect and understand other students by gaining awareness and insight of depression and suicide. Chao believes that the assembly impacted Costa’s students by making each individual more conscious and insightful towards other people’s well being.
“I hope students were able to gain a heightened perspective on how depression and suicide can be a serious issue,” Chao said. “I believe that the heartrending stories from the speakers were able to provide various students with information and experiences that they could each internalize individually and use to help them understand others who are fighting depression or suicidal thoughts.”
On average, one out of every four adolescents will have an episode of major depression during high school. Because of this, Costa’s People Attaining Complete Equality took the lead and designed an assembly solely for the purpose of educating students and promoting the prevention of depression.
On Mar. 26th, PACE held it’s first ever Depression and Suicide Awareness Assembly to feature guest speakers. The event was planned and coordinated by a committee of PACE members, led by head chair junior Brian Chao. A total of approximately 134 students attended the assembly.
“The assembly’s main purpose was to address the implications of both suicide and depression and educate students about the solutions available,” Chao said. “We wanted to give people an informative background surrounding both issues while also delivering poignant examples of what it feels like to suffer from depression and suicidal thoughts.”
The assembly featured two speakers, Richard Mogil from Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services and Ric Tennenbaum from Teen Line. Both organizations are local based, free and confidential suicide crisis hotlines that can be reached 24/7. The speakers shared personal experiences dealing with depression and suicide in an attempt to relate on a deeper level to the student audience and connect with each individual.
“We believe there is more to suicide prevention than just statistics,” Mogil said. “It is personal and the personal stories show that anyone can suffer depression and have thoughts of suicide. I hope the presentation was empowering for them, that they might have discovered ways to help others trying to cope with depression and suicidal thoughts.”
Speakers encouraged students to be more aware of the seriousness of suicide and depression. They centered a majority of the assembly towards the warning signals of suicide, ways of prevention and how to cope with depression or suicidal thoughts.
“Depression, anger, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, they all weigh so heavily on people,” Tennenbaum said. “They linger, build, and fester until they’re dealt with and they will exhaust a person endlessly until it seems like they are completely trapped and alone. You can’t fight that battle alone. My main goal through these outreaches is to show people by example that it’s okay to talk about suicide and depression, no matter how dark because if it’s presented earnestly with unfiltered honesty, the story demands respect.”
PACE spread the word about the assembly by hanging posters around campus and notifying teachers. PACE worked to promote awareness and prevention of suicide and depression and help students seek help.
“Our goal with our assemblies is to touch since we haven’t done an assembly about it yet, we wanted to reach out to those who could benefit from it. We also wanted to educate people about how to be the support that their friends need and how to manage depression if it is affecting you.”
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