Madison City Schools has a webpage called MCS Mental Health Matters/Resources (click HERE). This webpage has links to places where students can go or call if you need help and instructions on what a parent can do if they are concerned with their child’s mental health. They recently had a family mental health workshop people could attend, but the webpage is there whenever you need it. On the webpage, the font and images are bright and colorful; it seems inviting. They have many different websites and places to go for a variety of different problems a student could be facing.

They also have many different access points around the school in hallways and classrooms where students can quickly scan the QR code. It also is mentioned every semester, and there is a slideshow that teachers go over with the class. Since mental health is so important in students’ lives, it’s nice that the school system decided to make this page. Now we need more students to access it. Even though there are many ways to access the page around the school, it seems that many students haven’t even looked at the page yet according to my student poll. With so many people affected by mental health issues, students may need to be pointed to it with more intention.

Why do you think that the website isn’t getting many visitors at the moment? I believe that it is because the students don’t know that it exists. According to Morgan Walker, a student at Bob Jones, she had never heard of the page before. “I never saw any QR codes or remember being told about the mental health page before.”

Students know that mental health is an important subject, and I feel like students would really benefit from the information on this page. They just need to find out about it and get practice in referring to it regularly so it stays in their mind. According to Sami Braband, a student at Bob Jones, “Students walking through the halls are not worried about what is on the walls; they are mostly glued to their phones.”

It is a great resource, but students may need some help taking advantage of it.