Mental and Emotional Health at San Benito High School

The Youth Alliance is a nonprofit agency located in Hollister. It offers many programs and links individuals to resources. One of the programs is Guiding and Understanding Individuals in Achieving Success (GUIAS). This program is available in San Benito High School. Due to the lack of knowledge/awareness of mental and emotional health, the available resources in the GUIAS program are being underutilized. Consequences of underutilization of services include truancy, less likely to graduate and increase in risk taking behaviors. This capstone project focused on implementing a lesson plan about mental and emotional health and it took place during the students academic focus time (AFT). Students that are not enrolled in the program are flagged to attend a 3 half hour sessions at GUIAS. One of these sessions helped students have a better understanding of the factors that have to do with mental and emotional health. Also, they had the opportunity to learn what resources are offered for them and for anyone in the community. 40% of the participants were male and 60% of them were female. The results demonstrate that 100% of the students, male and female, agreed that the lesson helped them understand mental and emotional health and are aware of the resources available in San Benito County. 90% of the students felt that GUIAS contributed to the understanding of the topic and 10% didn’t. Lastly, 90% of the students are interested in learning more about mental and emotional health and 10% are not interested. Keywords: Mental and emotional health, academic focus time (AFT)