Way to Go! Massapequa student raises mental health awareness
Massapequa High School senior Isabella Ritieni. Credit: Massapequa School District
A Massapequa High School student is striving to improve the mental health of middle schoolers in her district.
Isabella Ritieni, a senior, recently created a mental health awareness video to emphasize the importance of mental wellness to seventh-graders at Alfred G. Berner Middle School. The six-minute video, which was shown during the school's health education classes, focuses on strategies to cope with everyday stress and anxiety, and provided contact information for local mental health resources.
Ritieni, who since kindergarten has been a member of the Girl Scouts, tackled the audiovisual project as part of her Gold Award, the highest achievement within the Girl Scouts of the USA. She chose to create the video, which she began working on last summer, because the COVID-19 pandemic prevented her presenting a program in-person.
"I think it came out really great, and I think the kids learned a lot," said Ritieni, who noted that she chose seventh-graders as her target audience so they can take the knowledge into their teen years.
After viewing the video, district officials said many of the seventh-graders implemented some of Ritieni's stress-release suggestions such as journaling and creating a "worry box" — the latter of which is a container into which children can post their anxious thoughts so they don’t need to carry them around anymore.
— MICHAEL R. EBERT
Michael R. Ebert is an education researcher and has worked for Newsday in various capacities since 2003. He was part of an 11-person team named as 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalists for investigative coverage of the LIRR's platform safety issues.
