By Jacob Bugarin
Source of Strength is on a mission to help the youth’s mental health and contribute to suicide prevention. Sources of strengthcreates healthy social networks, that helps the youth with suicide prevention, bullying, and substance misuse. What it also does is helps kids or the youth learn more ways to seek help, how to cope in a healthy way, as well as how to make young people feel like they belong according to Benicia’s counseling office. Sources of Strength wants to help people who are having hard times and people who feel like they have no one to rely on. Sources of Strength strives to be that person to rely on and they want to teach it to the younger generation so when times get hard, they know what to rely on. According to Junior Counselor of Benicia High School Ms. Cole, “The 8 sources of strength are: Family Support, Positive Friends, Mentors, Healthy Activities, Generosity, Spirituality, Physical Health, Mental Health.”
A senior student from Benicia High School named Robert Chambers said this about Sources of Strength, “ Sources of Strength helps promote inclusiveness and student advocacy so students can listen to students”. A simple response, yet the loudest, because he is right. Benicia High School wants students to be able to listen to one another so they can help each other out and learn about each other. A lot of students in Benicia may be going through a lot of hard times and sometimes, reaching out to people, especially people that you don’t know, can be really hard to do. What Sources of Strength does is to include students from Benicia who may not know each other, hear each other out and to include all the Benicia campus in it. In the Benicia campus sometimes, students sit by themselves eating lunch or on their phone while other people walk around and do not try to include others.
As we all know this is a new generation and many young students all over the world deal with bullying and some deal with mental health issue that can lead to suicide which many teens are doing a lot now a days. Some things that students and sources of strength do when they attend training is usually have chairs in a circle and have some microphones so the people who are speaking everyone can hear them talk. On the Benicia Sources of Strength Twitter account, they post a lot of inspiring posters to help mental awareness for other people on the Benicia campus to see. Junior Counselor of Benicia also said this regarding how sources of strength includes and brings students together, “The method for promoting inclusiveness and student advocacy is built around a design to harness the power of peer social networks to create healthy norms and culture. This design is meant to ultimately prevent suicide, violence, bullying and substance misuse. Anyone can participate in the BHS Sources of Strength and it is advertised to be an inclusive program. Students are taught to advocate for one another and pick each other up in times of need. Being a part of Sources of Strength is an excellent option for students who want to belong to something but don’t play sports, participate in band, drama, etc.” With that being said, Sources of Strength is something every Benicia student should try out.
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