Parliamentary Trip for Macleans College students
Posted on August 12, 2019
On Wednesday 7 August two Year 13 Macleans College students, Bailee Ryan (Rutherford House) and Lucy Green (Hillary) travelled to Parliament in Wellington to present their petition which requests the government to fund and implement Mental Health Skills programmes in the New Zealand Curriculum.
They were represented by MP and Mental Health Spokesperson Matt Doocey, who supported them in presenting their petition to the Clerk of the House.
The pair are passionate about all New Zealand children, from every financial and ethnic background, having access to learning the skills needed to maintain a positive mental state. Their petition aims to promote well-being as well as enable teachers to be better equipped to help kids facing mental health issues as this is an area of training not covered in the teach training programme.
The students have developed a following on their Facebook page, where they identify the need for this policy implementation in order to fight the mental health crisis New Zealand is facing. They also shared their personal experience with mental health issues and their views on the topic. Furthermore, their petition was recently talked about on the radio station Mai FM, to help raise awareness about their campaign.
Their efforts were initiated by a group assignment in their Level 3 Social Studies class, taught by Ms Glass.
