On November 17th, 2016, Fieldston held its first ever assembly on Mental Health. Planned and led by students, the assembly focused particularly on stress, anxiety, and depression, and featured guest speaker Dr. Anne Marie Albano, Professor of Psychology at the Columbia University Medical Center.
The assembly featured a video collection of interviews with Fieldston students, created by Maya Friedson (IV), to shine light on the lack of mental health conversation at our school. “I think the video Maya made was terrific in highlighting the need for the assembly,” Nancy Banks, Dean of Students, said. It showed that many kids feel they don’t have the knowledge or vocabulary to discuss mental health in an educated manner.
That’s concerning, since mental health is a huge issue for adolescents. According to Rachel Florman (VI), who gave an informative presentation at the assembly, 13% of male students, 19% of female students, and 66% of transgender students at U.S. independent schools have been diagnosed with depression, and 16% of male students, 25% of female students, and 63% of transgender students have been diagnosed with anxiety.
Dr. Albano’s presentation was educational and informative, attempting to give the audience a better foundation of knowledge on adolescent mental health. She stressed the difference between everyday anxiousness and diagnosable anxiety. Anxiety becomes a problem, she said, when it prevents us from participating in our own lives. The overall thesis of the assembly was that, above all, it is incredibly important to talk to a professional if you think you might be experiencing a mental illness or disorder. At Fieldston, psychologists Carly Miller and Jessica Lassman are here as resources for any student feeling stressed, anxious, depressed, overwhelmed, or just in need of some listening ears.
For Fieldston to gather and talk about mental health was unprecedented, and this assembly was a huge step in starting an incredibly important conversation. Yet, several students on the assembly committee were frustrated. They had wanted personal student testimonials to be part of the assembly, a concept that, ultimately, Fieldston did not allow.
One of the sixth form organizers of the assembly posted in the Fieldston Class of 2017 Facebook group, “we were not allowed to share speeches about our experiences with mental health at the mental health assembly. Many people I’ve spoken with find this as outrageous as I do and want to do something about it too.”
The idea of student testimonials was first brought to the school’s attention in September, when the student assembly planners met with the school psychologists to brainstorm.
“I think that student speakers who have personal experience with mental illness are crucial for people who do not know as much about the topic to understand it,” Samantha Ratner (V) said. “Personal experiences can allow people who do not have direct experiences with it to understand the reality of living with mental illness.” Dassa Philipson (VI) added, “as a freshman, I didn’t really know what mental illness looked like. And I think that if people were able to get up on stage and share that, I think it would be a really great experience and I think it would be a really big step forward for Fieldston in terms of starting a conversation on mental health.”
Yet, when the planning committee brought the idea of student testimonials Dean of Students Nancy Banks, she was concerned enough to ask Robert Cairo, Upper School Principal, for advice. “We wanted to work with the students to come up with an assembly that would honor their original vision but also keep the safety of the student body in mind,” said Dr. Banks. “We also felt it was our responsibility as adults to honor issues of confidentiality.”
“Dr. Banks oversees the assembly program, and she makes the decision as to what content is appropriate in assemblies,” said Mr. Cairo. “I have full confidence in her to do that, and she will seldom bring an issue to me. Occasionally she will, for advice, if she’s not certain about the appropriateness of something, and that’s what happened in this case. And in this case I was uncertain.”
Mr. Cairo consulted with a few out of school psychologists, and brought the matter to the Student Support Group, comprised of all four deans, Grace Yun, Randy Slaughter, the two counselors, the Learning Center Chair Jessica Romano, and Nurse Eileen Coogan. “That whole group was very concerned about students making testimonials about their mental illness. It was unanimous. There was a real consensus that this would not be a good idea.”
“We wanted to work with them to come up with an assembly that would honor their original vision but also keep the safety of the student body in mind,” said Dr. Banks. “We wanted to honor issues of confidentiality, because that’s also our responsibility as adults.”
Reactions to this decision were mixed. Some students agreed with the school’s decision, expressing their feelings that the assembly wasn’t the right format for students to share personal stories. Other students felt the decision wasn’t transparent enough, or was too abrupt.
In his interview with the Fieldston News, Mr. Cairo brought up another concern: that the Fieldston community might not be ready for this. “This was new ground for us, we’d never had assemblies on this topic, and we certainly wanted to err on the side of caution,” Cairo said. Dr. Banks felt the same way. “I think we have a lot of work to do in this community around educating ourselves, students, and parents about mental health,” she said. “I think there’s a huge stigma. It’s a really important issue, but we have to do some conversations in smaller settings before we bring that to the whole community. Right now, I don’t think we’re ready.”
Ciara Cury (VI), found a different way to get Fieldston’s mental health conversation started. “Because of the way the assembly turned out,” said Ciara, “I wanted to find a way to still allow students that platform to be able to share their experiences in as safe a way as possible, and allow for others to see the experience of their peers to normalize it, and put a real life story behind the acronyms and conditions.” Ciara’s senior project is a password-protected blog where Fieldston students will be able to anonymously share their stories and experiences involving mental health. “Mental illness can be so isolating and lonely because it’s stigmatized to even admit you are dealing with it,” said Ciara on the importance of sharing personal stories. “So many students don’t have any idea what to do and are suffering silently.” Ciara said the school was very supportive of her senior project. “There were only slight things we had to work out about safety and accessibility,” she said. “Besides that, there were virtually no obstacles.”
The desire for Fieldston to engage in deeper conversation around mental health was shared by all of the adults involved in the decision. “I would love people to know that we’re here,” said Jessica Lassman, speaking for herself and Carly Miller, the other school psychologist. “I think students should know that we are available, and that we are a safe place for them to come. I think the idea that the school hired two people means that the school knows that there’s a need. They recognized it enough to make it a bigger position. That’s the big thing I want students to know.”
