Wellness event raises mental health awareness

During lunch on Sept. 9, the Wellness Center held an event for Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month. 

The wellness counselors worked with leadership and the health and wellness commission to host a tabling event in Center Court. Students could stop by a temporary tattoo station to get a semicolon design with ‘#continue’ written at the bottom. The semicolon is a symbol of mental health issues, depression and suicide awareness and solidarity. As a punctuation mark, semicolons are used to continue a sentence instead of ending it, representing how a person could have ended their life, but chose to keep going. Additionally, there was a take-what-you-need poster, which had positive affirmations that students could grab on their way. 

Leadership students passed out teal ribbons, which symbolizes the mental health movement. 

“Green is the color of mental health in general,” said sophomore and Health and Wellness Commissioner  Lauren Tazbaz. “Suicide Awareness is purple and teal, [and] mental health is green. That’s why the wellness counselors pass out green pins.”

There was also an interactive poster at the event where students could grab post-its and write what they were hopeful for, ran by wellness counselor Araceli Cordova. Participation was rewarded with candy. 

“The purpose is to promote hopefulness and forward thinking because a lot of the times people who feel suicidal have a hard time looking forward to anything or being hopeful.” Cordova said. “We didn’t want it to be so in-your-face, so [that] if students pass by, they don’t have to interact and can just see the information we have with posters and tabling.” 

The wellness counselors work at the Wellness Center, which is located in room 224 in E Hall. Students have the option to either drop in or make an appointment. The drop-in schedule is always posted on the Canvas dashboard. 

“It’s a place that’s supposed to be calming for students who need to spend a little time recentering themselves,” said wellness counselor Max Bernstein. “We don’t use fluorescent lights, there’s comfortable seating and [we have] snacks and tea.” 

Students go to the Wellness Center to help with stress from school, relationships, family or anything else that they might be struggling with mentally. 

“The idea is that the wellness staff can support students going through these very real emotional hardships,” said wellness counselor Jillian Ma. “Our [primary] goal is never to increase a student’s grades. It’s to [help them] function well in school.” 

Rookie, a trained therapy dog from the San Mateo Police Department, is the newest addition to the wellness team, and is currently scheduled to be at Aragon, up to twice a month. Rookie works with students across the District. 

 “It’s comforting to just sit with a therapy animal,” Ma said. “You know, dogs don’t judge you.” 

The Wellness Center hopes to inspire students to seek help without feeling intimidated. 

“A student may come in with a friend or two [so] they [don’t feel] alone,” Bernstein said. “[This helps] students who might want to have a conversation with somebody, but don’t feel like they can just walk in.” 

According to Ma, the Wellness Center plans to have an awareness activity every month, including an event about healthy relationships in February and mental health awareness in May. 

Written by Emma Shen