Wellness 4 Washtenaw
Mission: to increase students' knowledge of and access to mental health resources by strengthening relationships with mental health providers.
Throughout our years as an organization, we strive to ensure that our events and our work is as effective as possible, and we do this by collecting data through interviews with different student populations.
Our Mental Health Fair is our signature event in which we bring mental wellness support to our students. We partner up with different organizations, therapists, and school resources that table booths at our fair.
Through our workshops we have reached over 200 middle schoolers and 400 high schoolers as we dive deeper into topics that are highly prominent in schools such as anxiety and stress.
We are committed to making mental health openly discussed, understood, and supported in schools across Washtenaw County. More specifically, we strive to support underserved student populations, such as students of color and economically disadvantaged students.
There are so many students out there, who are struggling without the care they need. It’s our job to fix that.
105 N Mansfield St, Ypsilanti, MI 48197
Wellness4Washtenaw was founded in 2023 by Student Scholar Dyuthi Aryasomayajula and Scholar Educator Daniel Giddings. Coming from a school with a wide variety of minority-based students and students from low economic backgrounds, Dyuthi noticed the prominence of lack of understanding of mental well-being and lack of awareness of the resources the school provided. She made it her mission to solve this issue and give mental health the importance it deserves. Our organization was established with the purpose of empowering students from all backgrounds by educating them about mental health and its importance on the individual. Rather than simply supplying resources, we strive to provide our students with the space to feel comfortable accepting and using these tools. Supported and funded by the Bezos Scholars Program, we aim to fulfill students’ needs by increasing access to mental health resources that support the development of lifelong healthy habits. By expanding mental health resources in Washtenaw, our goal is to reach the greatest number of students in need and provide meaningful support for those struggling with mental health challenges.
Our core team is comprised of a 6-person executive board with our 2 founders as advisors. In addition, we have over twenty general members, committed to our mission of advocating for mental health.
105 N Mansfield St, Ypsilanti, MI 48197
Throughout the year, our organization runs multiple different events. From hosting workshops, to planning awareness murals, to interviewing students, W4W takes great care in each and every one of the ideas that we bring to life.
The interactive mental health fair, targeted at teenage high school students, seeked to educate others and raise awareness about mental health issues. The Mental Health Fair provided a valuable opportunity for students who are passionate about mental health awareness. Major contributors to the event include, Growing Hope, an Urban Farming Operation; EMU Psych Clinic, an amazing resource for those in the community; and Food Gatherers, a food bank for those in need.
The mental health fair included multiple comprehensive booths and presentations for students to explore. At each booth, students learned about the resources the organizations provided, various mental illnesses, coping strategies, and ways to seek help.
W4W organized a school-wide workshop in order to educate high schoolers on different mental health illnesses, in addition to the stigma around them and common misconceptions. We also addressed coping techniques and important ways to seek help. We also incorporated activities, such as kindness notes and stress balls and a wrap-up discussion to let students reflect on ways to improve overall well-being. Overall, we were able to reach around 400 high school students.
We taught over 200 middle school students from 6th grade through 8th grade on anxiety and how to deal with the stress and challenges during the transition from middle school to high school. During the workshops, students participated in engaging, interactive activities in which they had to recognize anxiety symptoms, learn about misunderstandings that surround anxiety, and practice identifying healthy coping strategies.
One of our core initiatives was the specific interviews we conducted with identity-based student organizations, including the Black Student Union, Queer Student Association, and Indian American Student Association. Through these interviews, we collected data on different communities' mental health experiences about community-specific barriers that hinder seeking mental health support. We used this data to specifically tailor our events and resources to the needs shown, more effectively targeting the issues prevalent in our community.
As a way to honor World Mental Health Day on Oct 10th, the entire Wellness4Washtenaw team worked together to create a mural to spread important messages to help boost self-confidence and to spread awareness through sticky notes about Mental Health. Members wrote numerous messages on sticky notes, with the intention of having people who needed lifting up take the sticky notes with the positive messages on them. We then placed these sticky notes in a painted heart held by hands to stand out and spread positivity.
For the start of the 25-26 school year, Wellness4Washtenaw wanted to spread information related to mental health that we deemed important for the newer freshmen to know. The brochures served as a way to share information about our school's resources and tips for incoming students. The brochure included information about important contact resources, ways to get help, and Wellness4Washtenaw's story.
105 N Mansfield St, Ypsilanti, MI 48197
From our interviews and surveys, we have collected data on student's viewpoints on mental health and their situation.
Mental Health Stigma
Perceived Representation at WIHI
Perceived Adequacy of Resources
Through interviews with seven student identity-based organizations, it was revealed that widespread mental health stigma and identity-related stress were strongly prevalent, demonstrating a strong need for culturally responsive and visible mental-health support at WIHI.
105 N Mansfield St, Ypsilanti, MI 48197
Listed below are the resources that our team has compiled. This includes guides, support systems, organizations, etc.
Exercises to incorporate into your daily life → all these are very useful for understanding emotions while simultaneously working through them
Tools or programs that help people find providers.
General therapy, counseling, psychiatry, and mental health services.
Immediate help, crisis hotlines, or emergency psychiatric care.
Programs specifically focused on substance use disorder treatment and recovery.
Community support groups and wellness programs.
Services for survivors of violence and abuse.
Programs specifically for young people.
105 N Mansfield St, Ypsilanti, MI 48197
These are the organizations that have worked with us multiple times for past events or who have supported us in other ways such as funding.
We work closely with SST to incorporate student support groups at WIHI like the TRAILS program (developed by the University of Michigan with skill building lessons around stress, anxiety, and depression in a small group setting) and the SMART program (a group that helps students with addictive behaviors, such as phone use, social media, gambling or substance use). We have a mutual relationship with SST, in which they have targeted groups and we provide data, resources, and ideas to implement.
Through our submitted grant reports, we receive funding from the Bezos Family Foundation.
(more info)
We have partnered up with The Corner Health on multiple occasions, such as our mental health fair. They also work to support similar causes with mental health and endeavors to address stress at school.
These are organizations that we have teamed up with once or twice for our events. We truly appreciate all their work on support!
105 N Mansfield St, Ypsilanti, MI 48197