MALONE — A local student is spearheading a mental health awareness campaign this week with athletes at his high school.
Jonas Fefee, a sophomore at Franklin Academy, said he got the idea to start an initiative where student athletes could show their support for mental health awareness from a student leadership conference.
Fefee said he was one of nine student athletes from Section X who attended the conference through the New York State Public High School Athletic Association (NYSPHAA) in Albany last month, and he told the Telegram that the conference’s motto stuck with him and prompted him to start this week’s campaign.
“The main motto of the day’s conference was ‘Human Greater than Athlete’ and I loved that motto and felt like I wanted to do something towards it,” he said.
Fefee said student athletes can show their support for mental health awareness by wearing wristbands, adding the bands themselves are green and white.
“They were asked to wear them during school and any events they have during the week,” he said.
The goal of the initiative is to encourage schools to provide training to athletic directors, coaches, and student-athletes to help them learn how to identify signs and symptoms of mental illness, break the stigma associated with it, and provide resources to those who need them, according to NYSPHAA’s website.
According to the Mental Health Association of New York State, mental health awareness helps everyone to recognize the signs and symptoms of mental illness and ease people into the process of seeking aid for themselves or others. Confiding in a peer, trusted adult, or professional is extremely beneficial because 60-90% of those who receive treatment experience positive outcomes.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month and this week is NYSPHSAA’s seventh annual Mental Health Awareness Week.
“I saw those were the dates when I was at the conference so I planned to do it this week,” Fefee said, “There was a lacrosse game Monday night and there was quite a bit of people wearing them at that and there were some people who were playing golf last night too who were wearing them.”
Fefee said he runs track in the spring at Franklin Academy and also competes on the school’s basketball and soccer teams in addition to playing on a travel soccer team.
According to Fefee, he enjoyed his time at the student leadership conference in April.
“It felt there was a lot of unity, everybody had similar goals and it felt very well put together,” he said, adding it was his first time attending the NYSPHAA conference.