Roundtable discussion about men health By Jocie Mintz and Emily London Graphic by Joey Sola-Sole
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ental health programs at Whitman have expanded significantly over the last decade. In 2014, former Principal Alan Goodwin created Stressbusters, a council of parents focused on reducing student stress. The next year, staff and students implemented Sources of Strength, a youth-led suicide prevention program that builds connections between students and faculty. The county also implemented Signs of Suicide, another suicide prevention program, during the 2017–2018 school year. That spring, the SGA began hosting mental health seminars in every class. The seminars, each of which included a student sharing their own experience and a presentation about different mental illnesses, have evolved to cover new conditions with each year. And this school year, OneWhitman discussions provided a new avenue for students to discuss mental health.
To assess how constructive these initiatives have been and what steps our community should take next, we sat down with students advocates, involved community members and dedicated faculty Feb. 13. Participants: Junior Pia Alexander, English teacher Matthew Bruneel, school social worker Emily Callaghan, psychologist Karen Crist, counselor Angela Fang, sophomore Leo Levine, senior Harley Pomper and senior Anthony Rabinovich. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
The Black & White: What do you think of Whitman’s climate surrounding mental health? Harley Pomper: It’s improved over the last few years. We definitely have a culture of awareness, but I don’t know if we necessar-
ily have one of action regarding improving our mental health and circumstances right now. I also think that although people are more open about it, some people kind of treat it as a joke. Angela Fang: I feel like, from a counseling perspective, it’s somewhat biased in a sense that we only see students who are more willing to talk about it. So I probably don’t see as many students who would be more closed off to it in terms of being open to talk about it. But there’s definitely a portion of people who still don’t quite fully understand it. Matthew Bruneel: I worked here for five years and then left for the Peace Corps and came back, so I remember a pretty clear contrast of how Whitman used to be versus how it is now. It used to be that we never discussed depression or anxiety — that wasn’t
