Check Your Head

Update 4.2.20: Mental Health Colorado no longer offers this program.

Check Your Head is a school-based program that encourages young people to explore issues such as self-identity, conflict resolution, depression, tolerance, and more. The program helps young people identify their mental health needs, communicate their needs to others and find constructive resolutions to the problems they face.

Students learn about:

• Identity and self esteem
• What influences them
• Support structures in their life and how to broaden that safety net
• How to deal with conflict
• How to be a friend to someone in need, including discussions on depression, alcohol abuse, and suicide

Each section typically begins with classroom discussions. Students are encouraged to share personal experiences on each theme and listen to the experiences of their classmates. The instructors, being skilled youth leaders, are able to facilitate such discussions sensitively – ensuring that stimulus material is well presented and that the classroom environment is safe. The instructors are very skilled at leading this process in a student centered way.

Thoughts, feelings, handling life’s demands…yesterday, today, and tomorrow…that’s mental health.

Here are the facts:

• 1 in 4 people are dealing with a mental health issue.
• About 19 million people in the US deal with depression – most don’t get the help they need.
• Depression is the #1 cause of suicide in the US and the second leading cause of death for young people in Colorado.
• Hip Hop and Mental Health

Students combine hip-hop elements – dance, lyrics and art –  with their knowledge of emotional wellness and fuse it into a creative performance that expresses who they are to their peers.