Cosby High School is the first to pilot the #umatterchallenge!

Check out the video the teens did! Thanks to Alex Chaffee, teen leader and member of the Swift Creek YMCA Leader’s Club for her help in leading the charge on this social media mental illness acceptance and suicide prevention program! And to all the students who stood up against the stigma of mental illness.

I doubt I could have gotten a team of adults to do this video. So who’s gonna erase stigma? High school students like these guys!

If you want to bring this simple, 2-week program to your school, contact me. This program is through Beacon Tree Foundation, advocates for youth mental health. The next school might be one in Henrico. Maybe.

Rock on Cosby and thanks for being pioneers and having the guts to take this on, for honoring Charles’ struggles with depression and addiction and for supporting your peers who also struggle. So proud of you guys I could cry. OK. Confession. I did cry.  I have a feeling you’ll make me cry again. Good tears. I want pictures of you guys in action to post! I want to see the posters you made.

Special thanks to Merel Williams, School Counselor and Cassie Rogers, Health Science Specialty Center Coordinator for supporting the teens in this program.

Can’t wait to check out the #umatterchallenge hash tag on Instagram.

  1. Details on the #umatterchallenge program are here. We are still working on the “kit” for the program.
  2. Sign up here if you want to do the #umatterchallenge with Cosby High School

Published by

AnneMoss Rogers

AnneMoss Rogers is a mental health speaker and suicide education trainer and consultant. She is author of the Book, Diary of a Broken Mind and co-author of Emotionally Naked: A Teacher's Guide to Preventing Suicide and Recognizing Students at Risk with Kim O'Brien PhD, LICSW. She raised two boys, and lost her younger son, Charles, to addiction and suicide on June 5, 2015. She combines lessons learned from her experience with proven strategies to help organizations build a wellness culture that drives results and saves lives. She speaks at conferences as a keynote, at workplaces,and at K-12 schools and universities.

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