Betty Skiles

“My project will empower high school leaders (both students and teachers) with resources and guidance to spread hope, aid and support for mental health issues throughout their communities by building social networks involving student peers and trusted adults. The students will then, through their own voice, campaign as agents of social change within these networks to forge connections, spread positivity, normalize positive coping techniques, provide help and resources to those in need and incorporate Hawaiian place-based cultural values as components of their social network campaign. This work will immediately impact the youth leaders by giving them the tools, resources and opportunities to identify their own unique support systems. They will then learn how to be positive agents of change within the cultural context of the school. The greater impact is to the school community at large as these social networks are leveraged to spread messages of hope, provide trusted resources for aid and teach resiliency through the personal identification of supports that students can turn towards within their own lives.”