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Purpose: This activity can be used as an icebreaker activity because this activity looks at the understanding youth has around mental illness. It has youth think about what they feel is mental illness and what they believe is associated with mental illness. This activity incorporates all students to take part since it has the youth write down their answers versus having to talk in front of the fellow youth. With this activity, ensure to tell the youth there is no right or wrong answer and that this activity is meant to see what youth think about mental illness.
Age: This activity can be done with children from the age 13 years and older.
Time Frame: 10 minutes
Environment: To be done in a classroom setting
Association Exercise.
Preparation: For this activity, the facilitator will need cue cards, masking tape and markers for each individual participating in this activity. Possibly, have 3 cue cards already filled out in advanced so that the youth can have an idea of what the activity is about. Also with this activity, it is encourage the facilitator participates as well so the youth will feel less pressure to write down the wrong answer.
Instructions: Hand out the cue cards and marker to youth. Explain to the youth they will be learning about mental illness, but first, it is important to see where everyone’s understanding of mental illness are. Explain that on the cue cards they are to write down what they think of mental illness and what they think of a person with mental illness. Be sure to explain more than once there is no right or wrong answer. Once they write down as many ideas they could think of, have the youth tape their cue cards onto the wall. Once all the students have done this, discuss with the class which cue card will fall under these categories of myth, misconception or misunderstanding, hurtful or disrespectful language or factual information.
Discussion Questions:
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Discuss how the ideas they have about mental illness falls under the first three categories.
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By having these ideas, how do you think this could relate to a stigma around mental illness
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By being educated around mental health and mental illness, do you think these ideas could possibly change? How so?
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