Mental Health Matters (MHM) is a program of the Mental Wellness Center (MWC). Originally created in 2000, it is designed to introduce basic facts about mental health to elementary, middle and high school students. The MHM course addresses three foci: (1) signs and symptoms of major mental health disorders, (2) stigma and how it affects our perceptions of mental illness and (3) wellness activities and practices.
The underlying premise of MHM is that with understanding, youth will know to seek help should they or someone they know experience symptoms of a possible mental health disorder, knowing that early treatment tends to lead to better outcomes. There is evidence of a recognized need for mental health education that is grounded in the increase in requests and the ongoing success of the MHM curriculum.
Learn more on our ABOUT page.
The California Standards for Health Education include mental, emotional and social health. Mental Health Matters addresses these important topics. Students learn basics about mental health and how they and the important people in their lives might be affected by mental health issues.
The course is fun! MHM employs a range of techniques to keep students engaged. MHM teachers work as a team, and this helps keep the process dynamic and students involved.
This curriculum is based on one that was developed for - and has been taught in - 6th grade & 9th grade classrooms in Santa Barbara, California and now includes a website with our online multimedia resources.
Goals and Outcomes
- Learn the facts, including symptoms and warning signs, of specific mental health disorders
- Understand that mental health disorders are treatable
- Understand that mental health disorders can happen to anyone – even children and adolescents
- Reduce stigma and ignorance that surround mental health disorders
- Practice wellness skills
Major Mental Health Disorders Discussed in the Course
- Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder [ADHD]
- Anxiety disorders such as general anxiety disorder, panic disorder and phobias
- Stress-related disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder
- Mood disorders, including clinical major depression and bipolar disorders
- Eating disorders, including anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating
- Thought disorders like schizophrenia
Research Supporting Mental Health Matters
- Research suggests that negative attitudes toward individuals with mental illness are developed as early as kindergarten and are relatively stable into adolescence (Weiss, 1986; Weiss, 1994).
- Research supports the hypothesis that there exists among school-age youth a high level of stigma that is often associated with exclusion of peers who are thought to have mental illness (Hennessy, Swords, and Heary, 2008).
- Research further suggests that by fifth grade, students are able to conceptualize mental illness in a more sophisticated manner (Ventieri, Clark, and Hay, 2011). This last finding suggests that middle school is a developmentally opportune time to provide psycho-education and to decrease stigma.
