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Our Work With Kiwanis of Florence
One of the most exciting parts of my job as a Program Specialist with The Kim Foundation is the work I do with 5th grade students through a partnership with the Florence Kiwanis chapter.
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Our partnership allowed me to go into 11 different elementary schools to talk to 5th grade students about mental health and self care through a Mental Health and Self-Care 101 presentation this last year. In the presentation, we define mental health, we talk about feelings, how to regulate them, as well as talking about what self-care is and how to use it to take care of ourselves.
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While helping students recognize feelings are part of their mental health, as well as their thoughts and actions, what’s most insightful is the way the students respond to understanding how broad mental health is. We often don’t give enough credit to how perceptive our young ones are, but many times whenever we get into talking about healthy and unhealthy ways to cope with feelings, they have good ideas and can talk about what strategies work for them.
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It’s exciting work, and even more worth it when I see students making the connections between their thoughts, their feelings, and actions, and how mental health plays a part in all of it. I’m grateful to continue to do the work and come back with new activities- like one where we use easter eggs to show that what’s on the outside doesn’t always match what we feel on the inside- a valuable lesson that we come to learn as we grow, but will hopefully give students an advantage as they learn it now.
Linda Murillo Kennedy,
Program Specialist