STORY PREVIEW

2021

Sources of Strength

Sandpoint Middle School

Idaho

MENTOR

Clara Woodbridge

Step 1 FEEL

List the challenges or problems in your surroundings (school,neighbourhood etc.) that bothered you.

We felt like our school had no knowledge about the Sources of Strength, a program designed to promoting mental health and resiliency.

State the problem chosen to work and why.

We chose to work on it because it's a big issue that kids don't know what Sources of Strength are. Mental health is important for everyone so it was important that people know about it.

Who were the people affected by the problem? What were their primary concerns?

The people affected by not knowing about Sources of Strength are the people it was designed for. It was designed for everyone, so everyone who doesn't know about it has a higher risk of suicide and depression.

Step 2 Imagine

List ALL the different solutions you came up with.

When we first started, we tackled the issue of mental health in our school. Some of the ideas we first came up with are to give out plushies, putting up signs to help give directions, having kids stationed in the hallways between periods to give directions, maps located throughout the hallways, and handing out notes and gift bags to kids to make them feel better. We settled on positive, anonymous notes on every locker to help kids keep going.

Which solution from those listed above did you choose to implement and why?

Out of our ideas, our first part of Sources of Strength was focused on positive friends. We used positive notes to increase them; next we focused on a blend of mental health and positive friends by making paper chains spanning the halls asking who there friends are that keep them away from drug abuse. Our next target was gratitude. We did this by asking kids to fill out books every day asking them what they were thankful for. After that, still focusing on gratitude, we challenged them to complete a Random Acts of Kindness challenge where they completed random acts of kindness. After this, we focused on spirituality by hosting a writing competition asking them what gives them purpose in life.

Step 3DO

Describe very briefly the process of implementing your solution(s).

Every time we decided on a project, a group of us would split away from the big group to focus on that particular thing. This was more effective because we could have many different groups working at the same time to cover more ground.

What was the result or impact of your project?

We were able to boost the mental health of our school and make the school a better place to be. We also spread the message of Sources of Strength to our school.

How many people were impacted by your solution(s)?

560

What did the impacted people have to say about your project? Provide 2 quotes or testimonials:

"Thank you Design for Change, you have helped the school a lot, we appreciate it!" (We are still doing our projects so we haven't gotten a lot of feedback.)

What challenges did you encounter while implementing your project, and how did you overcome them?

Some challenges we had was when the store was out of supplies, we had to improvise with what we had. And when we were doing contest that involved a prize, some one the prizes weren't going to be here in time so we had to change gears entirely and come up with something else.

How long did it take to implement your solution?

MORE THAN 30 DAYS

Which global goals does your story align with?

Good health and well being

Please explain briefly why do you think so?

Good health is both mental and physical health. We focused on mental health quite frequently so this is the global goal we worked with the most.

Step 4 SHARE

How did you share your project with your school and community? Who did you share your project with? What was their response?

We shared our project with our school by implementing the project in the school. We also shared it with adults in the community who spread the word around.

Approximately how many people did you share your story of change with?

More than 100

Briefly share your plan to sustain the impact of your project?

We plan to keep going and keep spreading the word of Sources of Strength so that kids in our school can remember and stay suicide-risk free.

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