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Purpose: This activity focuses on the importance of help and support towards someone with mental health. It allows the participants the opportunity to think of ways they are able to help someone with mental health and learn about ways to support them. It also gives the participants an opportunity to think of ways they could help themselves if they were to possible learn about a mental illness in them.
Age: 10 years old and older
Time Frame: 20 minutes
Environment: Depending on what type of balloons; if using water balloons, should be done in an outdoor setting, if using regular balloons, can be done in a classroom setting.
Brains Get Sick Too
Preparation: You will need to draw or print a picture for each child of a brain, balloons (or water balloons), baseball or darts.
Instructions: Post the pictures of brains around the room. Have a few volunteers blow up balloons to fit over top of the brains. Explain that the balloons are examples of all of the discrimination and not nice words used against someone with a mental health issue. Give each child a base ball and tell them that they can throw it at the balloon if they give an example of how we should treat someone with a mental illness. If they pop the balloon explain that now the bad thoughts in the brain are smaller and are overpowered by the ways that we should treat someone with a mental health issue. If they don’t pop the balloon tell them that some people need more encouragement maybe even treatment to help with their mental health issue and to try and think of another example.
Discussion Questions:
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what are two ways you can support someone living with a mental illness, discuss this in detail.
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