SEATTLE — A youth program wants to uplift young people's desire to deal with everyday mental stresses in a meaningful and healthful way.
One high school senior in Shoreline is answering the call. Hailey Zaw is a senior at Shorewood High School who recently moved to Shoreline.
"I was born and raised in Singapore, and moved here in December 2021," Zaw said.
She soon realized living in the Seattle area wasn't too much of a contrast to her life in Singapore.
"I'm used to the rain back home so the rain doesn't really affect me as much, and I kind of like it," Zaw said.
It certainly wasn't the weather that dragged her down but rather, the daily stresses of high school life, tests and college applications that got to her.
"When I first moved here, it definitely took a toll on my mental health because moving across the Earth, and the culture shock and the difference was, it really affected my mental health initially because I don't live with my parents, my parents live back home so I live with family," Zaw said.
Zaw soon looked for ways to help herself and her peers. She was chosen as one of three team leads for this year's National Student Advisory Council for a group called, Work2BWell, a program that advocates for teens to approach teens.
"We're more likely to understand similar mental health problems and experiences and we're able to relate and rely on each other," Zaw said.
The Providence Health-based initiative hopes to encourage young people to embrace mental health.
"It's the main part of what we do," said Jawanza Hadley, program director of Work2BeWell. "We make sure that everything we do has a teen voice or a teen lens to it," he said.
The data indicates that now is the time to pay attention.
2023 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey shows an upward trend in mental health concerns among young people.
It includes a steady rise in the percentage of teens who reported feeling "persistent sadness and hopelessness," and the percentage of high school students who "seriously considered suicide" has ticked up in the last decade.
"I think a lot of times a lot of well-meaning, well-intentioned adults are like, hey we have this answer, we know what it is, but really it's about going to the teens who know. They're growing up today, they know what it's like to be in school," Hadley said.
As part of the program, Zaw took part in a podcast about dealing with testing stress and led a mental health workshop for teachers and staff at Shorewood High School.
"They're not alone in this journey, and there are lots of people that love and care about them and there's also lots of resources out there that they can access to help them and that they'll be able to get through this, and you got this," Zaw said.
For more information on mental health resources, visit wellbeingtrust.org.