Globally, it’s estimated that 1 in 7 adolescents experience some form of a mental disorder, and just within the United States, 20% of high schoolers in 2023 reported experiencing suicidal ideation. Statistics like this highlight the urgency and seriousness with which we must approach the youth mental health crisis. However, while educating and raising awareness about mental health early on has been proven to be effective within school systems, integrating a full-blown mental health course into the curriculum would not be feasible for most schools. Assemblies, on the other hand, are easily implementable and readily available ways through which schools can raise awareness about mental health early.

Through this project, I will analyze the effectiveness of mental health assemblies in improving knowledge and changing attitudes about mental health amongst middle schoolers at BIFU, in the hopes of finding an easy and effective method through which schools can fight against the youth mental health crisis. Additionally, by administering a pre-assembly and post-assembly survey that also collects demographic data, I will analyze whether gender identity, grade level, or ethnicity plays a role in the reception and change brought on by these assemblies.