BCHS Art Trading Cards: Mental Health Awareness Week 2017

Today marked our the final art therapy based project, sponsored by my Spectrum club’s DEHR grant, for the 2016-2017 school year. For information on past projects please check out the following links:

Heart of A Community: BCHS Students Fill Their Hearts

ART THERAPY: We All Wear a Mask

For this final exercise we decided to try an art trading card technique. Art trading cards, are similar to hockey cards, or pokemon cards. The image on the front represents something about a person. The back of the card provides a name and a few details about the person it represents.

Based on our success with past project, we chose to make this a multimedia task with minimal instruction so that our students had plenty of opportunities for personal reflection.

Students were then asked to complete 3 cards.

1. To keep
2. To trade
3. A final card to contribute to the BCHS commemorative collage.

*although we allowed complete freedom for the first two cards we asked the students to base their third card on what it means to be a member of the Bishop Carroll community

With Spotify “tunes for the coffee bar” channel streaming in the background. We provided our students with two hours to work on their projects.

The results were amazing.

We are waiting for the last few cards to come in and then we are planning to mat the cards in a single frame in order to create a legacy piece to remember not only Bishop Carroll’s 45th anniversary, but also the year we were able to collaborate between art and counselling thanks to our amazing DEHR grant.

Thank you ATA.

Sincerely

Mrs. Luong

The BCHS 3rd Annual “WE DON’T SAY ” Campaign

2017 Marks the third year of the BCHS Spectrum clubs annual “WE DON’T SAY” Campaign. For information on our previous campaigns please check out the following links:

Creating a Culture of Caring At Bishop Carroll

We Don’t Say 2.0: Our #Carrollculture of Caring Continues

We proudly launched this year’s anti- slur campaign on March 19th, 2017 during the 4th annual BCHS Mental Health Symposium . A big thanks especially goes out to the Bishop Carroll commuity for coming up with our phrases,  Grade 12 executive Olivia Quinn for leading our project,  Arlene Hufalar from the BCHS Photography club for taking photos for us, Spectrum alumni Sara for designing the posters,  Mr. Audet for printing our posters, Mr. O’ Flaherty for approving our messages and Ms. Luong and Boppre for acting as club sponsors.

Here are the phrases that made it into our campaign this year.

 

What phrases and responses might you have added? Feel free to share this campaign with others, or add comments.

BCHS 4th Annual Mental Health Symposium

On Wednesday April 19th Bishop Carroll’s Mental Wellness Team, Spectrum Club and Jack.org partnered together to put on our school 4th annual Mental Health Symposium.

(see 1st, 2nd, 3rd)

Our fabulous, student run event,  involved 100 participants from four different schools in the Calgary area. Participants were encouraged to participate in a number of mental wellness activities including building gratitude baskets, sketching to the fabulous tunes of our very own Kate Stevens, making a button with the Spectrum Club  and being the first to view the launch of the The BCHS 3rd Annual “WE DON’T SAY ” Campaign.

Our students were reminded that everyone experiences “Mental Health”, however at least 1/5 Canadians will experience Mental Illness in their lifetime.

One of our morning keynote speakers  was Calgary teen Maggie Harder who was the original initiator of the  Amazon Suicide Shirt Campaign which took place in January 2016. Maggie spoke to our students about the fact that language matters, and it’s important to stand up (in a positive and constructive way) for what you believe is important.

Heart of A Community: BCHS Students Fill Their Hearts

One of the innovative projects I am pleased to work on this year involves a collaboration between myself, another counselling colleague and our art teacher. BCHS Spectrum Club’s mission is to bring people together and spread a message of love …

ART THERAPY: We All Wear a Mask

One of the innovative projects I am pleased to work on this year involves a collaboration between myself, another counselling colleague and our art teacher. BCHS Spectrum Club’s mission is to bring people together and spread a message of love …

Snowball’s of Advice from Bishop Carroll’s Mental Health Symposium.

http://www.healthyplace.com/stigma/stand-up-for-mental-health/stand-up-for-mental-health-campaign/

On January 7^th , 2015, during our Mental Health/ Wellness Symposium students found solutions to real world problems.

Activity: Snowball Advice

You don’t have to look far to get advice. Some of the best advice comes from your peers

• Please write down on the form provided, a situation which  you or someone you know, may be struggling with right now. (do not add any names).

• Crumple the form into a snowball and toss it into the center of the room.

• When instructed by the facilitators reach down and grab one of the snowballs from the floor (making sure that it is not your original form).

• Read over the situation and provide some healthy advice for how to handle the situation in the first column.

• When you are done, once again crumple your paper into a snowball and toss it to the center of the room

• Repeat steps 3-5 two more times.- try not to repeat any ideas or advice that has already been written on the form.

• At the end of this symposium we will be collecting all of the situations and suggestions and compiling a google document. Please check back on the document at a later date to receive your peer advice.

We’re extremely excited and proud to share their thoughtful, helpful, responses. Please scan the QR code to take a look at the advice  Bishop Carroll students shared.