Youth Survey Speaks

We the People Warwick's Youth Engagement Team surveyed local youth about their challenges and received 300 responses.

To the Editor:

We the People Warwick’s (WTPW) Youth Engagement Team seeks to bring current youth issues and concerns to the foreground so youth voices may be heard and met with positive guidance, mentorship, and supportive community partnerships.  

We would like to say thank you to all of you who responded to our Youth Engagement Survey, which was created to assess the needs and concerns of Warwick Township teens.  We have received close to 300 responses and are excited to share the initial results.  As the graphs reveal, the greatest challenge facing our youth, by a significant margin, is anxiety/depression.   This comes as no surprise, given the current statistics regarding the youth mental health crisis.  

When asked about ways to help support our youth, respondents offered a variety of ideas.  The top three responses were: opportunities for creative expression, wellness classes, and training in handling difficult conversations, all of which are needed in our post-pandemic world.  As we work to design meaningful activities, our ultimate goal is to create spaces where teens and tweens can gain connectedness, meaning and resilience, all while having fun!  Please refer to the accompanying graphs to gain a better understanding of the overall results of our survey.

While we continue to explore additional ways we can help deliver on what we learn, we need your help in gathering even more responses to the short 4-question survey.  If you have not already responded, please take a moment to do so.  The survey can be found on We the People Warwick’s website (wethepeoplewarwick.org) under the Teen Activities tab.

The Youth Engagement team will be participating in Part 2 of WTPW's upcoming "You Are Not Alone" Mental Health Forum scheduled for Saturday, April 29th at Mountain Lake Park Lodge.  This forum will give community members the opportunity to discuss ways we can work together to prevent mental illness and promote mental health and well-being. 

While the team will focus on the current youth mental health crisis, additional topics to be covered at the forum include: recognizing the symptoms of various mental health conditions, suicide prevention and intervention, the intersection of mental health and substance use, and mental health treatment (levels of care, local resources, and providers). 

We invite Town of Warwick mind/body wellness practitioners to join us at the forum to share your insights and expertise in exploring pathways forward to provide support for our youth.  We also invite our youth, whose voices we really want to hear, to participate in the forum. We value youth perspectives and invite them to guide us in understanding the current challenges they face and co-create solutions to those challenges. To join us at the April 29th Mental Health Forum, please register to attend at https://forms.gle/vECATajPoyd46uSaA. You can also find this link on our website (wethepeoplewarwick.org) under the Events tab.

If you are interested in lending your voice and your ideas to our planning and preparation for the “You Are Not Alone” Mental Health forum, feel free to reach out to us at WethePeopleWarwick@gmail.com.

Janeen Mitchell

Warwick

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