This week WHS celebrated Hope Week. The Hope Squad featured random acts of kindness, and activities that foster a supportive, caring, and stigma-free school environment. The Hope Squad continues to work on breaking the negative stigma that can go along with mental health. Students participated in activities during lunch that included: Positive Pin notes, positive post-its, rock painting, stress free coloring, bracelet making, and picture taking with a frame of Hope. The week ended with a scavenger hunt, tattoos, and face painting.
Hope Squad is a peer to peer support team who are trained to know when a peer is struggling with their mental health. Members are nominated by their peers as students that can be trusted to reach out when someone is struggling without fear of judgement. They offer empathy and will find the support a student needs when in a mental health crisis.
As part of breaking the negative stigma that goes along with mental health, the 21 students from Hope Squad celebrated Day of Hope by handing out bead necklaces of support and presented an assembly to the student body explaining their purpose in the school community.