Chad's Legacy Project-Mental Health Education

Stigma vs Mental Health Education

Chad laid quietly on a gurney in the emergency department, waiting to be admitted to the psychiatric unit for the first time. When it was clear he was to be in the hospital for at least a week, his first request was for us, his parents, to tell his siblings that he was merely staying at a friend’s apartment. His concern that they may think less of him for his illness weighed heavily. The stigma attached to mental illness and resulting silence can be almost as damaging as the disease.

Terms such as “crazy” or “nuts” are commonplace, but are extremely harmful to the process of seeking and sustaining care. It drives silence within those suffering that prevents a willingness to accept help. The mystery of mental illness and how it plays into the mindset of the rest of us only feeds that silence.

When misconceptions create stigma for those around a sufferer, it is easy to understand why keeping quiet about mental illness is just easier. Silence and the fear of being labeled often leads to limited communication with the very providers that can help. It can even lead to denial of critically needed care. Mental illness is no less a disease than Coronary Heart Disease, Arthritis, or Multiple Sclerosis. It is merely much less understood.

An individual suffering from mental illness should never be in a position to hide their care for fear of judgement and being labeled. Mental illness is a disease, not a weakness. Mental Health Literacy in high schools provides an effective, evidence-based, long term solution to ending mental illness stigma, beginning with an entire generation. The result would be shortened spans of first illness onset to first access to care, increased school productivity, saved lives and healthier communities. That was the inspiration for us to create mentalhealthinstruction.org, the first online library of Mental Health Literacy curriculum programs dedicated for teachers in simplifying their search and assessment for needed Tier I education tools.

THE MENTAL HEALTH INSTRUCTION LIBRARY IS GROWING!

Download the complete Mental Health Literacy Library introduction and press release from August 2021 here.

Chad's Legacy Project and the SMART Center at the University of Washington have jointly created a comprehensive library of existing national Mental Health Literacy curriculum at www.mentalhealthinstruction.org. Phase I began with a focus on Mental Health Literacy.

Listings were first measured against four components defined as the corner stones of Mental Health Literacy for submission:

Understanding how to foster and maintain positive mental health
Understanding mental health disorders and their treatments
Decreasing stigma of mental illness
Understanding how to seek help effectively for self and others

The components of this library include:

A comprehensive listing of available curricula and mental health presentation programs
Search, filter and comparison tools for each curriculum and program, referencing K-12 Learning Standards in Mental Health according to the Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
An Implementation Guide toolkit for best practices in initiating a curriculum.

This library is intended for use by any teacher, staff member, district or Educational Service District in the United States to aid in their search for the mental health instruction needs of their schools.

Following the unveiling of the professionally developed site in December of 2023, we are now launching Phase III where we will add three other categories of learning: Social Emotional Learning, Substance Misuse and Suicide Prevention. Upon completion, it will be the most comprehensive teacher resource for Mental Health Education curricula available. This resource is poised to grow from 10 Mental Health Literacy programs, to 200 programs across four categories! Learn more about this effort here.