During the week of February 27th to March 3rd, Texas A&M will be hosting its first ever Mental Health week, an initiative to promote mental health resources to Texas A&M students. The Student Government Association (SGA) and Aggies Reaching Aggies (ARA) have worked closely with administration to put together the events for Mental Health Week. This week is all about promoting mental health resources and encouraging students to reach out if they ever find themselves struggling. Counseling And Psychological Services (CAPS) frequently puts together workshops free for students that provide help with stress management, healthy relationships, imposter syndrome and so much more. A full schedule of when these workshops take place can be found on the CAPS website.
Make sure to check out the events planned throughout the week starting off with the Kick-off Event at Rudder Plaza on February 27th at 4:30 pm! For a full list of events going on throughout the week, check out the CAPS website.
Owen Denman, the Mental Health Coordinator for SGA, has provided more insight on the work done by students that went into creating this incredible event and how SGA is continuing to promote mental health resources.
The following interview has been edited for clarity
Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and your position/involvement in planning Mental Health Week?
Yeah for sure! I’m the Mental Health Coordinator for SGA. This means I work with Ethan Tan, our Vice President of Student Services and Case Harris, our Student Body President. We sit down with university administrators like Nancy Fahrenwald to discuss how to improve the student experience with better access to mental health resources. A project I’ve gotten to spearhead is Mental Health Week. We’re currently preparing for the first ever A&M Mental Health Week by hosting four events over the course of February 27th to March 3rd!
Why are you passionate about promoting mental health awareness?
Honestly, there are a number of places to serve that I’m really passionate about. I think that the new student experience is a place to serve and so is transportation and serving the essential Aggies of A&M. I can’t do all of these things immediately, and so I took the advice of a mentor of mine: find a place to serve and get to work. A friend named Andrew Applewhite was explaining to me how he improves mental health week through the student senate, and I hopped on board through the Executive branch and implemented a lot of initiatives that have been discussed for a while now.
Will Mental Health Week become A&M’s newest tradition?
I sure hope so! Everything has been a work in progress this year. We’re improving everything as we go because we started from scratch and there’s a ton of new waters to test. With that, there’s a ton of room for improvement, so the hope is that this year has excellent events as well as clear goals for improvement in upcoming years. I can definitely see Mental Health Week having thousands of students at the events in the next year or two. We’re for sure planning on continuing this into next year, so come check out the events and come back in 2024!
What resources will Mental Health Week be promoting for students to use?
MySSP is the biggest resource we’re looking to promote for sure. A&M heavily invests in crisis counseling through MySSP which is an app you can download on your phone. We’re hoping that everyone who hears of Mental Health Week downloads MySSP on their phone. It can save your life or maybe even a friend’s in an emergency situation.
What are some of the events students can be looking forward to attending during the week?
We have five events: the ‘kickoff event’ on February 27th in Rudder Plaza, the ‘mental health panel’ on February 28th from 6:30 to 7:30 PM in the MSC Gates Ballroom, A ‘words of encouragement’ table on March 1st from 1 PM to 3 PM in Rudder Plaza, and Aggie Moms and Puppies with Aggie Paws from 11:00 AM to 1 PM as well as ‘An Evening in Aggie Park’ with tabling and resources from 4:30 to 6:30 PM on March 2nd.
What has been your favorite part of working on this project?
Case Harris and Ethan Tan have been incredible people to learn from, so that’s been super fun. We’ve gotten to sit down together and work on phasing in mental health resources into Canvas. When I log in to do work after a tough few classes and see the ‘Mental Health’ tab, I find satisfaction in knowing that we got to contribute to this resource being accessible to over 70,000 students who may struggle in their own ways with mental health. There’s such a tangible impact to that which I’ve really enjoyed.
How can students get involved in advocating for mental health resources?
There’s a couple ways to get involved: AMHA and Active Minds are two great mental health organizations on campus where students can invest their time, and students can also reach out to anyone in SGA to discuss mental health improvements. Senators who serve on the Student Services Committee and members of the Executive branch’s Student Service Commission are already spending their free time trying their best to serve the student body in regards to mental health. These people would love to hear from you. From personal experience, students reaching out to us is invaluable encouragement and needed input as we work to serve A&M as best we can.