Mental health plays an essential role in people’s everyday lives, especially in teenagers as they deal with adult problems and the stress that comes with it. It can be very hard for teens to go through with the process of change of youth to adulthood, as well as struggles that are going on at home or the amount of schoolwork that needs to be completed. 

 The distress and struggle that this generation has has been an ongoing problem. In an effort to bring awareness to teen mental health, Central Kitsap high school held a “Hope Walk.”

“Last spring, a big article came out about the mental health crisis in teens…I think that there has been a mental health crisis for quite some time in teens,” Scott McMinds, CKHS counselor and orchestrator of the Hope Walk, said. “But it was really brought to the forefront with the COVID isolation, so I believe that putting together something such as the Hope Walk is a way for us to put our phones down and do something active, and fun, [and] it also brings attention to mental health awareness.” 

McMinds thinks it is an important topic to discuss.

“It’s one of those things,” McMinds explained. “It’s not a secret. It’s not something that we’re trying to hide and it’s not something we’re trying to avoid, but I don’t know that people have the answers, and that’s the difficult thing. But I think it is important that it is at the forefront of everyone’s attention so we can do what we can to help.”

McMinds continued, “The reason we talked about or wanting to have the hope walk is because I think hope, dreams, and goals are huge things. And I think that in teens, there’s a lack of hope. There’s a lack of focus or there’s a lack of feeling purpose and having their own individual passion. So I think that’s why we focused on hope.”