With yesterday being World Mental Health Day, I figured it’d be a good idea to post about an initiative FRC125 has been working on for the past couple of weeks…
The NUTRONs, FIRST Robotics Team 125, are partnering with the Amazing Campaign at the Out of the Darkness Walk in October in Boston. Our students are working on mental health resources for students, mentors, volunteers and teams to help #EndTheStigma of mental health issues in the STEM and FIRST community. We have created a T-Shirt Fundraiser to benefit the campaign, and let me tell you… it’s MFD. The funds raised from the sales of this shirt will all go to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
These shirts, designed by Kristine Atiyeh, can be purchased here.
In the case you’d rather simply donate, the AFSP website has a page for donations.
Thank you for helping us to help this great cause.
As someone who has been impacted by depression in many forms as well as other mental health issues throughout my life, it means a lot to me to see an FRC team take up this cause.
I’m not sure how else I can help at the moment but I did buy a shirt and donate a few dollars. I genuinely think this is a wonderful thing to talk about in our community and there is no better time to talk about it than now.
Are there other parts of this initiative other than shirt sales? What kind of resources is 125 developing?
We are hoping to develop, organize and communicate resources both developed by us, as well as compiled from outside resources. We know that anyone and everyone can be affected by this crippling disorder, and we want these people to know that our awesome community is a safe space.
My favorite idea we are currently developing is working with events and their coordinators to create Quiet Rooms. We all know how crazy and loud events can get and how sometimes people just need to get away. While the far reaching goal is to fill rooms with cute puppies to snuggle with, we think starting with a quaint, peaceful environment for event goers to decompress is going to go a long way.
This fundraiser and the Out of the Darkness Walk are some of the first things we’ve worked on. Look for more info and ideas to come as the team works on Ending the Stigma in the coming months.
This is an absolutely awesome idea. I know that there are many students who end up searching for quite corners or even just go and sit out side to cope with the loud, high energy, high tension environment the competition creates.
The PNWDCMP is sponsored heavily by Autodesk and every year they have “the Autodesk lounge”, it is essentially a giant area connected to the pits where they have put down shag carpet and approximately 100 beanbag chairs and a few ottomans to use a tables. Most students use it as a space that they can go to calm down and get away from everything.
I hope that eventually we are able to get every event to set up a quite room. Also I am so happy that 125 is taking on such an important issue that is not talked about enough.
Last season, Greater Kansas City had what was called the “Steam Release Room” as part of a mental health awareness initiative. It was a quiet room staffed with some mental health professionals and with additional info available to point people to a text-based help line. The RPC has committed to doing that again, but with more support, this season at both Kansas City regionals.
YES. This will be incredibly helpful, not only to people with mental disorders but also to people who may not be able to handle the intense atmosphere of competitions for days on end.
How will you be working with your events to create these quiet spaces? I imagine you will be starting in New England, so once you have the resources available, could you share them with the CD community? I would be happy to aid in the creation of these across FRC.
YES. One of my former teams just had a student take their life recently, so this hits a bit close to home for me. Not to mention that during my student years (and even now at times) I struggled with depression.
Awesome! I was at the NAMI walk in Chicago a few weeks ago and discussed with some of their employees how a future team of mine might tackle some of these issues with their partnership.
If you need more resources you might contact NAMI Dallas.
