#12 - To Bend a Bamboo, Start When it's a Shoot: Interview with Ashley Hill

Today on Matters of the Mind, I’m continuing conversations with guests attending the Active Minds Mental Health Conference, the nation’s leading conference focused on young adults and mental health. I speak with Ashley Hill, the Senior Manager of K-12 Partnerships at Active Minds. Ashley discusses the significance of introducing mental health awareness in K-12 schools and the role of community support in mental health recovery and well-being. She also emphasizes the impact of positive, affirming adults on youth mental health outcomes and talks about her workshop on Youth Champions, a program designed to help adults facilitate mental health conversations with young people.

To learn more about Active Minds, visit their website www.activeminds.org

Transcript

Pippa: Hello everyone, my name is Pippa Greenberg, and you are listening to my podcast, Matters of the Mind. Today, I am in Washington, D. C., attending the Active Minds Mental Health Conference, the nation's leading mental health conference for young adults. I'm currently sitting with Ashley Hill, Active Minds Senior Manager of K-12 Partnerships.

Welcome to Matters of the Mind! Matters of the Mind! So nice to see you. 

Ashley: Thank you for having me. I'm excited. This is my first podcast. Hey girl! 

Pippa: Ooh, yes. Okay. So can you tell us about your work and what brings you to the Active Minds Conference? 

Ashley: Absolutely. Yes. So I have been with Active Minds for two years. I'm in K-12 partnerships, which means I get to sing the praises of all Active Minds does in the K-12 space, which is a new space for Active Minds. You know, they started off in colleges and universities for the first 20 years. And now we're working our way backwards. One of my favorite sayings is to bend a bamboo, you start when it's a shoot, right?

So having conversations about mental health when you're 20, 21, 25 is great, right? But when that bamboo is a shoot and when it's young, you really want to get that, those impressions in there so they can have these conversations earlier. And so I get to work with a fabulous K-12 team and expanding Active Minds footprint for middle school and high school. And so I'm here to, of course, support my team and see all the fabulous sessions. I don't know if you were able to see that opening conversation, but it was 10 out of 10. So seeing some really great workshops and then able to facilitate a workshop today about youth mental health as well.

Pippa: That's fantastic. And I agree that starting when the kids are young and making sure they get the help they need is really important. I mean, really, getting help at any age is important. 

Ashley: Facts. 

Pippa: It's great to start when they're young because then they get all the help they need. 

Ashley: Absolutely. Get the foundational stuff, right? Yes. As soon as a young person can listen and talk, we need to be having these conversations about mental health. So the sooner we get in there, the better. 

Pippa: Yeah. 

Ashley: Yeah. 

Pippa: For sure. Are you speaking at this conference? 

Ashley: Um, I, yeah, I led a workshop. Yep. Just, just, I just, I just flew in from it. Yeah. I just, I just came from it. Yeah. Just closed it down. 

Pippa: That's fabulous. So what did you speak about and why is this topic important to you? 

Ashley: So yeah, Active Minds has chapters at many colleges and universities across the United States. And the idea is that young people are leading the conversation on colleges and university campuses so that they can be a resource to others.

And they can be a resource to community. So no one is feeling alone and isolated and people have opportunities to advocate for mental health services and resources on campus. And so because I work in the K-12 space, I have this cool opportunity to create this thing called Youth Champions. It's eight conversations, specifically geared toward adults who work with or are in relationship with youth. So the idea is that not only are young people receiving our programs and resources, but we want to make sure that adults are having these conversations as well. Because what we know for sure from data is that a positive, affirming, trustworthy adult can change youth mental health outcomes.

So if a great adult who's really pouring into youth in healthy ways can change outcomes in anxiety, change outcomes in depression, change outcomes in ideation for youth, we want to make sure that we're facilitating these conversations so adults know how to do that better. And so that's what I led this morning, the first of those eight conversations, just laying those foundations for chapter advisors today. 

Pippa: That's fantastic. It's great just to hear about all this work. I think it's a fantastic idea to have any adult who can help a child or a student who's struggling, just someone who's there for you. And particularly an adult presence is really important, especially for kids in some sort of school environment, it's really important to have a teacher or a faculty member, even like a nurse just there for you. 

Ashley: Absolutely. And I love that you said, just, you know, there for you, right? Because I think a lot of folks, especially adults, you know, when you hear mental health, you feel like, Oh, I need to have a clinical background to get in there. Right. Or I need to be a social worker. I need to be a clinician. I need to be a school psychologist. Right. And we need more of all of those people. Like if you're thinking about becoming one, yes, still do audience go into that field. Right. But there's amazing data that says just being that safe, trustworthy, affirming adult is really impactful in improving mental health outcomes. So you don't have to know it all, right? You don't necessarily have to, you know, you don't have to diagnose, right? You don't have to understand exactly how the brain works, right? You just have to, in order to be considered a youth champion, hold that space, right?

And then if a young person needs you, of course, and has a mental health need, you, are there to help provide resources, make connections, but you, you don't necessarily have to know the difference between, right, stress and anxiety and all of the words, right? You don't have to get caught up and nervous in that space. Being there for youth is enough. And then being able to be a resource in that time and then being able to pass them on to further resources should the need be bigger than you can provide. 

Pippa: Yeah. One thing that I loved is one phrase that teachers in my elementary school would say, they would ask a student who looked like they were struggling or needed help.

They would say, do you need to be helped, hugged or heard? Because sometimes you don't always need to be, as you said, someone with a degree in order to help a student, sometimes they need a hug or just someone who can listen to them as well as someone who may be able to help them in another way.

Ashley: Absolutely. I love that. Like, you're so on point. We are aligned. The stars are aligning. We actually have a session in Youth Champions, one of the eight workshops, that's called "An Ear, A Hand, A Voice." And so this is just an opportunity for adults to practice how to communicate with young people, right? A lot of times we like to be authoritarian, right?

Right. And tell you what to do and tell you what to think. And none of that is helpful, right? Young people are building their own ideas, grasping their own concepts, becoming who they want to become. And so an ear, a hand, and voice really lends to what you just said. 

So I'm asking a young person, do you want to ear? Do you want someone to just listen to what you're saying and like be a sounding board? Do you want a hand? Do you want me to help with this thing and lean in? Or Or do you want a voice? Like, do you want advice? Right? And, and for adults that like to like just jump in, I'm going to start solving this problem.

It's like, give young people the opportunity to solve their own problems and also to think about the kind of assistance that they want. Um, and you don't have to be the expert to do either of those three, but it's great when you can, as an adult, like measure your way of leaning in and let young people start leading and making their own decisions.

Pippa: For sure. We're in the same boat here. Because you are the senior manager of K-12 Partnership specifically, what role do you believe community support plays in mental health recovery and well being? 

Ashley: Oh, community support. I mean, I think that's everything. I think, I mean, a huge part of being a youth champion is that you are building a support community for young people, right?

And that support community can mean. You know, your teachers, that is your parents, that is your Girl Scout troop leader, right? Your coach, your basketball coach. When we're talking about mental health, we're talking about all hands on deck, which is why I love that everybody doesn't have to be an expert.

Like we just have to be vigilant. We have to be trustworthy. We have to be affirming. We have to have on our listening ears instead of our, you know, constant talking mouth, right? Listen more than you talk, right? Young people will tend to tell you what, what they need if you provide the space and the platform. K-12 Partnerships, of course, is big work in telling schools and community, Boys and Girls Clubs, Girl Scouts, like that we exist and we have these amazing resources for your middle schoolers and high schoolers.

And Youth Champions is just a way to ensure that all of those that are youth champions know how to build inroads with Gen Z, with Gen Alpha. How are we doing that well and how are we leaning in in the right way to make sure they see us as a support and not as a hindrance, not as a judge or jury, but they are able to come to us with any concerns they have. And we are a healthy sounding board for their mental health and any other concerns. 

Pippa: Yeah, for sure. So I'm gonna give you a two part question. Is there any advice that you would like to share for students struggling with mental health or for teachers, faculty, parents hoping to become a mental health advocate?

Ashley: Absolutely. I would say first, find someone that you trust that you can talk to. Holding things and sometimes trying to come up with your own solutions. Can be isolating, so finding a safe, trusted person where you can kind of unburden yourself. Someone who you can be vulnerable with, someone who just you consider your safe person.

At Active Minds, we want all youth to have a champion. And so I would hope that young people, whether it's a person their age or an, you know, the gym teacher that you love, right, or. You know, whoever it is in your life, um, who's a safe, trusted person that they be able to unburden themselves and that they have that space to speak freely and openly and that that adult will be able to help them seek further help if, if they need further help.

Sometimes you just need to say, I failed a math test. And I feel bad about it, right? And you just need that space, but sometimes it's more, right? And what I love about a youth champion or a trusted adult is that they will hold that information for you and they will help you to the next thing. So if that is like, let's get some more resources, this seems serious. You seem to have been sad for a long time, longer than normal. Let me refer you, right? Let's get some help. We're not going to just sit with it. We're going to be proactive, right? So just connecting is really important. Isolation is never going to help, right? When we're, we're struggling.

So finding community, even if it's one person, even if it's a friend, your best friend's parent, right? The person that you trust, um, leaning in in that way. So I would say definitely isolation is not a friend and reaching out and connecting is. 

Pippa: Yeah. Yeah. And it's really true.

Ashley: And your second part was about what educators and adults can do?

Pippa: Yeah. So just any advice that you would give to parents, faculty, really just friends, just anyone hoping to become a mental health advocate. 

Ashley: Absolutely. Yeah, of course. Go to ActiveMinds.org. Yeah. Of course we have so many resources that can start the ball rolling on how to implement curriculum, how to host conversations, where to start in mental health advocacy, right? I know it can seem like, you know, mental health is a very load. It can be a very loaded word for folks. But honestly, if you are a person that wants to. to connect and hold conversations, if you are a person who can be a support, you're all, you're already there, right? It doesn't have to feel so big.

And that's what I love about ActiveMind. So I would just say, find your sweet spot in mental health and mental health advocacy. If that is working with a school to ensure that during testing week, they have like a stress less opportunity where they can all do like a, a meditation, like it doesn't have to be huge, right?

But it can be very impactful. So find your way that you want to lean in, whether that's with your own family, whether that's with community, whether that's with schools. 

Pippa: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining me today. It's really important to have someone there for you, even if they're not helping you directly or in a moment, just someone who you know you can always lean back to when you need it.

And it's really amazing. 

Ashley: Absolutely. And what you're doing is amazing as well. Like this is so amazing. I'm, I'm super proud of you. I love when youth are leading these conversations and this is a big deal. So thanks for inviting me