Mental Health
Hope… we need hope and healing!
PS I Love You Foundation stands together with other mental health related organizations supporting the social, emotional, and mental health of our children through educational programs that teach resilience skills, emotional strength, and compassion for self, others, and the world around us.
Last December 2021, the US Surgeon General released a health advisory addressing youth’s mental health crisis while other youth organizations declared a national emergency in children’s mental health. A survey by Ann & Robert Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago in 2020 of 3,300 high schoolers found over 33% of students feel unhappy and depressed. Imagine what the percentage of unhappy youth is today? Good news is that happiness skills can be taught! Happiness can heal sadness.
Today, in 2022, it cannot be denied that the social, emotional, and mental health issues are far greater than they were just a few years ago, and it will take us more years to completely understand the impact this pandemic has created in our children’s health and emotional happiness. Children are struggling with stressors they have never faced before. The anxiety, isolation, fear, and loneliness the last few years have brought to our children has negatively affected their education, social connections, home lives, and emotional confidence. With facts showing an increase in trauma, suicide, domestic abuse, overdoses, gang violence, crimes, and depression, the demand for more programs and services to meet youth’s social, emotional, and mental needs is also on the rise. Good news is that PS I Love You Foundation’s programs teach skills to help manage anxiety and increase happiness.
Diagnosing mental illness isn’t a straightforward science. Each child is unique though symptoms and signs are often there. Common signs from National Alliance on Mental Illness are: sadness, withdrawal, harming self, fear, physical pain for no reason, weight loss or gain, use of alcohol or drugs, drastic mood changes, difficulty concentrating or staying still and intense worry and anxiety.
The good news is there is help and you are not alone. For more information visit: www.NAMI.org
50% of all lifetime mental illness begins by age 14
75% by the age of 24
Call NAMI if you feel your child needs help
800-950-6264
PS I Love You Foundation offers preventative life-skills by teaching techniques that help ease youth’s anxiety, develop human connection, and increase a sense of personal value. Let’s not wait. Join us.
Support our SEL Movement:
$3,000 for a class of 35 students
$150 for a child to go through one 12-week “Love4Life” SEL Program
$50 Supports Love4Life SEL Instructor Materials
Personally, as 20+ year educator of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) in schools, I have seen dramatic downward change in students’ behaviors and their ability to communicate and connect with one another. So many children exhibit withdrawal, distrust, insecurity, physical harm like cutting and substance abuse, and a disinterest in each other and in their education. Good news is the life- skills that increase overall health and well-being like confidence, compassion, happiness, trust, self-acceptance, resilience, and love can be taught.
It is imperative that we support our children in ways that teach them empowering skills that increase:
- Positive thinking
- Responsible decision-making
- Healthy relationships with others
- Love and value of themselves and others
Good news is these skills are what PS I Love You Foundation’s programs addresses. Our most recent programs have been integrated and piloted at schools such as: Hawthorne Middle School, Manhattan Beach Middle School, Dana Middle School, City of Gardena, Bonita Elementary, 156th Street Elementary School, and Mychal’s Learning Place.
It is my hope that our programs continue to reach more youth. I am proud to say that we are currently working with local Rotary Clubs and Rotary International to train Rotarians to become instructors of our Love4Life SEL Program. We are on a mission to improve the health and well-being of youth through positive reinforcement and life-skills that absolutely impact how youth feel about themselves and how they view the world. Love is most of it…Love can deliver the strength we need to advocate for ourselves and for others.
It is my vision that “Every child has a healthy sense of self, is able to feel and give love freely, and truly believes they can accomplish great things.” By assisting youth with skills to increase their trust in the world and most importantly their ability to maintain feelings of love, safety, and self-confidence, we can slowly make an impact in the health of our families, schools, communities and even countries.
With Love and Well-Being for All,
Patricia Jones
Founder, Executive Director
PS I Love You Foundation