Sources of Strength is an international organization dedicated to suicide prevention. McLean High School is piloting the program in Fairfax County this year “to spread messages of hope, help and strength,” according to sponsor and Systems of Support Advisor Nick Corsi.

Peer leaders of this club are planning an awareness campaign to encourage conversations about mental health. They will implement parts of their campaign in a Sources of Strength week from Nov. 28 to Dec. 2.

“They’re going to spread the word out, and by other students recognizing their faces, we’re hoping that these [peer leaders] are going to be some of the students our student body can trust and can come to when they’re feeling stressed, when they’re feeling emotional,” Corsi said. “The peer leaders can connect the rest of the students to trusted adults in the building.”

Peer leaders said they want to encourage dialogue about mental health.

“I wanted to get involved in Sources of Strength because I really believe that mental health is an important issue that needs to be talked about more…especially around here where people are suffering with it,” junior Eli Wassertzug said.

Junior Marissa Fedora is helping Sources of Strength by planning an art campaign.

“We’re trying to approve painting the rock to go with our club’s symbol [as part of] a week supporting our club,” Fedora said. “We’d do different activities every day of the week during lunches, with posters [and] stuff like that.”

Other parts of the campaign will help students introduce themselves to each other. Club members have all attended trainings where they learned about the importance of connecting with other students.

“[At training, they] shared this really interesting [story] where they gave a list of all the kids in a school to each student and they told the kids to put a checkmark next to everyone who they consider a friend, and one out of every six students didn’t check anyone and no one checked them,” junior Amanda Coughlin said.

To help students get to know one another, everyone will be encouraged to wear name tags on one of the days during Sources of Strength week.
Corsi said Sources of Strength offers an all-encompassing mental health program.

“Healthy activities, mental, emotional health, spiritual health, all those things—and if we’re able to manage those things, then that’s been shown to decrease suicide,” Corsi said.

The Sources of Strength wheel identifies each aspect of the program.

“What Sources of Strength believes and what we believe is that these components on the wheel are what’s really going to help us promote breaking the stigma of silence and [encourage] people to talk about their mental health and what they’re feeling,” Corsi said.

Members of the group said they hope it will grow and empower students to reach out about mental health issues.
“I think that throughout the year…and hopefully for years on, we are going to try to become more present in the environment at McLean, and [students] shouldn’t be afraid to reach out to us,” junior Hannah Gold said. “This program is really about helping individuals who are struggling with these things, and…they shouldn’t be afraid to reach out individually or in a group.”