The Regina Catholic School Division hosted their annual Youth Safety and Education Day this past week at LeBoldus High School.
Part of the day was spent learning about how students could protect themselves from physical injury in the workplace, but more focus was on mental health.
Founder of Understand Us Jim Demeray explained how the event is meant to be a celebration of health and safety for youth.
“I wanted to bring some mental health education to this specific age group,” said Demeray.
“We want to start that education at this point so they can start developing those healthy coping strategies throughout their impressionable years, so they can live a happy, healthy life.”
Demeray was this year’s keynote speaker for the special event.
He mentioned how people have always been more comfortable talking about physical injuries rather than mental ones.
“For some reason, we’ve had a hard time talking about mental health barriers. So if you can talk about it in an open, honest way and allow people to feel comfortable talking about those things, it’s going to help make them a healthier person overall.”
According to the Canadian Centre for Addictions and Mental Health, about half of Canadians experience a mental illness by age 40.
