I heard about YAC at the high school from other students and I’m interested in joining because I want to help out around the community and be more involved in it. I would bring qualities such as leadership, resiliency, open-mindedness, respect, dependability, and responsibility.

Community service means helping others in the community when it’s needed. I have been involved in gaining community service hours because I was recently inducted into the National Honor Society last school year, where I needed community service hours to join and every year I will need to continue gaining these hours.

To address mental health in the youth, I would first offer resources for people where they can open up about their feelings. These resources will be people who are reliable and not judgmental, so the kids feel safe to be able to share their experiences and feelings. Another thing that could be helpful is if there was an anonymous way for kids or teens to be able to talk to other peers about their problems because people around their own age could give different and more helpful advice because they are closer in age. Although, some people feel like they shouldn’t speak out about the problems they’re having because it’s not worthy or not important to be talked about. In this situation, I think we should give teachers and administrators in schools tools to use to help try and figure out if something’s going on, like looking for certain behaviors in students. Then, if they do think something is wrong they can address it in the appropriate way or talk about the resources they have available. The biggest thing though is promoting these helpful resources so people actually know that there are people who are willing to listen to problems and feelings these kids are having. Overall, the steps I would take are introducing a possible anonymous way for students to talk to other students their age, training teachers and staff to look for certain behaviors in students, and letting the children know that there are people who are willing to talk to them about anything.

To prioritize my commitment I will show up to the meetings on time. Also, this is a top priority because it’s a really important program, so it would come before things like hanging out with my friends. Some extra-curriculars that might interfere with my participation is the sports that I play like club soccer, basketball, school soccer, and possibly volleyball. Although, I’m not really sure that school soccer and basketball would interfere because we don’t usually have things on Sundays.

No, this is my first year.