{"id":719,"date":"2023-07-05T05:28:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-05T05:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/blog\/?p=719"},"modified":"2023-07-19T18:29:48","modified_gmt":"2023-07-19T18:29:48","slug":"amid-the-youth-mental-health-crisis-two-girls-find-strength-from-one-another","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/amid-the-youth-mental-health-crisis-two-girls-find-strength-from-one-another","title":{"rendered":"Amid the Youth Mental Health Crisis, Two Girls Find Strength From One Another"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Amid the current youth mental health crisis<\/a>, teen girls across the country are facing record levels of sadness and despair, with nearly 3 in 5 teen girls (57%) saying they felt “persistently sad or hopeless,\u201d the highest in a decade. And a national shortage of school counselors<\/a> means that many young people have limited access to support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there are signs of hope as teen girls are stepping in to become mental health responders for themselves and their peers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meet Dayna and Kiara<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dayna and Kiara first met working together and formed a close friendship. Kiara confided in Dayna, a Pace graduate, about her struggles with school and personal mental health challenges. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGo to Pace — it has small classrooms and a nice, more hands-on environment,\u201d Dayna recommended. \u201cThere are therapists as well if you ever want to talk about any issues.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dayna supported Kiara through her conversation with her parents about joining Pace, and after a meeting with counselors, Kiara enrolled.<\/p>\n\n\n

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We asked the girls what mental health awareness means to them.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAccepting your issues and being open about them,\u201d Dayna said, \u201cAdvocating for yourself, making sure that you know how to get the help you need.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you feel like you are not alone,\u201d Kiara said, \u201cThere are people that are there for you and can talk to you to help you through depression.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an introvert, Dayna said Pace pushed her to come out of her shell, which became the reason she advocated for girls to attend Pace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel like (Kiara) is my little sister,\u201d Dayna said, \u201cWhen I was going through my mental health struggles, all I wanted was someone to tell me that I wasn’t alone and that I had someone who cared.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since graduating in 2020, Dayna has referred a number of girls in similar situations to Pace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When discussing the biggest challenges facing teen girls, the girls focused on three major issues: mental health, social media, and sexual harassment.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before Pace, Dayna was reserved when talking about the issues she was facing. Pace helped her with her social anxiety by providing her with opportunities, including speaking at Pace Day at the Capitol.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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\u201cYou have to be vocal about what you’re going through,\u201d Dayna said. \u201cIf you’re not vocal about it, then no one’s gonna know how to help you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Dayna is studying IT at Florida State College at Jacksonville. Kiara graduated from Pace in Spring 2023, plans on taking a gap year and going to Florida State College at Jacksonville as well to study business in order to eventually open up a bakery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just wanted to be the person she (Kiara) could talk to,\u201d Dayna said, \u201cLet her know that she doesn’t have to go through everything by herself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The girls were asked to reflect on their younger selves and provide advice for going through life.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDon’t listen to what people got to say, stay true to yourself,\u201d Kiara said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKeep pushing. Keep fighting,\u201d Dayna said. \u201cDon’t let anything hold you back or get you down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On April 10th, the same day we got a chance to connect with the girls, Dayna and Kiara celebrated their friendship anniversary and decided to go out and commemorate it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Kiara created an art piece to acknowledge THE PLAYERS Championship Village grant<\/a>, which features her holding Dayna\u2019s hand to celebrate their friendship and their care for one another.<\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amid the current youth mental health crisis, teen girls across the country are facing record levels of sadness and despair, with nearly 3 in 5 teen girls (57%) saying they felt “persistently sad or hopeless,\u201d the highest in a decade. And a national shortage of school counselors means that many young people have limited access […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":724,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"post_tag":[],"class_list":["post-719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advocacy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=719"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":773,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719\/revisions\/773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_tag?post=719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}