It's a Topic!

Research Question: 

How can the education system improve their programs surrounding the mental health of their students? 

Changing the stigma surrounding mental illness is a very important issue that our society is facing today. I believe it is important to start the conversation anywhere you can. 

            So, for my thesis, I will be focusing on the programs that the secondary education system, specifically in New York state, has in motion now to improve the mental health of their students. 

My research will see what resources if any, schools have in place for their students to use when it comes to their mental health. I will also focus on what is required by New York State’s Board of Education when it comes to teaching about mental health. I want to know when schools implement these requirements into their curriculum, and how they go about it. I think it’d be interesting to see if the schools do the bare minimum of what is required or if they go above and beyond. However, I think it will also be important to see how access to resources, funding, and location of the school affects how they tackle this problem and ways the state can improve this.

            I also would like to research what students think of what the school is doing by surveying classes in multiple schools about the topic of mental health and see the baseline of what they know, what the school has taught them, and if the school itself helps them in a way they feel is adequate. I do not think my research would be complete without student’s opinions who actually attend New York schools and experience what they have to offer. What they have to say about how they believe their school could improve is extremely significant to my research because the point of my work is to succor them. 
          At the end of my research, I hope to create a curriculum or public program that can be implemented in schools or other educational institutions aimed at these students that help educate on mental illness, and ways to improve how schools handle the conversation and education on mental health.