Mental illness can be defined as a wide range of mental health disorders that affect ones mood, thinking and behavior. From depression and anxiety to schizophrenia or eating disorders, each area should be taken just as seriously. Juniors, Bella Brown and Tanner Reich recognized this issue, and researched it for their final project in English III.

“My partner and I both had realized that many students, teachers, and faculty didn’t know enough about various mental illnesses or what to do, and that’s where we got our driving question from,” Brown said. “Often times when people hear the words ‘mental illness’ they automatically think it’s something bad, and that’s not the case. Depression and anxiety [were] our main focuses because we know a lot of people at Mountain Vista struggle with those various illnesses and we wanted to tackle the fact that there are many people who can help them if that’s what they need.”

So, in efforts to educate the community of these problems flying under the radar they created a PSA video.   “We directed our video more towards students because we wanted them to feel as if they could tell someone if they needed to. We wanted to make them feel like they aren’t alone and there’s always someone to talk to about your problems or issues,” Brown said. “Mental illness is a huge topic and problem in the world we live in today. We wanted to address that it’s not a bad thing to go and get help.”

To watch their video, click here.