{"id":17032,"date":"2016-11-22T10:51:41","date_gmt":"2016-11-22T16:51:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/?p=17032"},"modified":"2016-11-27T14:11:47","modified_gmt":"2016-11-27T20:11:47","slug":"quick-look-2016-mhi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/2016\/11\/22\/quick-look-2016-mhi\/","title":{"rendered":"A Quick Look at the 2016 Mental Health Initiative"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cMental health at IMSA is a large yet overlooked problem. Students tend to feel alone in their issues, and there&#8217;s also an environment that makes students feel the need to push through their problems and pretend they don&#8217;t have any,\u201d says 1506 Hall Senator <strong>Radeesha Jayewickreme (&#8217;18)<\/strong>. In an effort to unite the campus and raise awareness for mental health, StudCo is teaming up with the school counselors, Kevin Kusy and Karen Schwartz, to lead the Mental Health Initiative during the week of November 28. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Throughout the week, there will be posters all around campus, a social media campaign, midday and after-school events. But this year\u2019s MHI Week will be different from last year, promises Radeesha Jayewickreme, \u201cWe are taking it in a new direction [this year, and] we want to make sure the week has an impact. We are partnering with SCIA to have a CCC forum with mental health specialists.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another thing to look forward to is the <em>possible\u00a0<\/em>premiere of the student-produced short film, \u201cGray.\u201d When asked about his motivation to make this film, <strong>Thomas Harris (&#8217;18)<\/strong>, the director and producer, said, \u00a0\u00a0\u201cI and Jen Song [editor of \u201cGray\u201d] made \u201cGray\u201d because no one should have to understand how it feels to be depressed, anxious, abandoned, or anything else&#8230;And it\u2019s all a spectrum. We are all gray. We all face mental health issues regarding ourselves and our friends, and we need to come together as a community to fight for the people who are challenged everyday by depression, anxiety, fear of missing out, etc.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">After just <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/suburbs\/aurora-beacon-news\/news\/ct-abn-imsa-niche-ranking-st-1118-20161117-story.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">being named the second best school in America<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, IMSA is ecstatic with pride and honor. But we\u2019re far from perfection, and there are many issues that haunt everyone this great institution. Nevertheless, the support of this campus is all the Mental Health Initiative needs to ensure its success and the advancement of the human condition. As Radeesha Jayewickreme said, \u201cPeople don&#8217;t have to go to all the events, but [they should] make sure to keep mental health in mind. Pay attention to what others say. We should try to care, empathize, and be there for the community.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cMental health at IMSA is a large yet overlooked problem. Students tend to feel alone in their issues, and there&#8217;s also an environment that makes&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":314,"featured_media":17036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1019],"tags":[2656,1617],"coauthors":[2601],"class_list":["post-17032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-imsanews","tag-mhi","tag-student-life"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/314"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17032"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17071,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17032\/revisions\/17071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17032"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=17032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}