Time to engage with your campus! Activities and events are a great way to bring interest to your club and educate your peers. If you're just starting out you can start with small activities or presentations in collaboration with your local NAMI Affiliate, or if you're ready for something bigger, you can begin thinking about larger scale events for the year. Try starting with simple tabling during lunch or after school. We have some tips and fun activities that you can read through in our Tabling Guide. The great thing about this program is that you can take inspiration from our downloadable Planning Your School Event, or create your own unique activities and events that work best for engaging your audience. 
 

Awareness Date Events

Every month there are different days, weeks, and full months that bring awareness to important events and causes as well as cultural heritage. We have developed a 12-month calendar with activities you can host in your club throughout the school year that coordinate with the awareness events of each month. This may also be a great way to connect with events already happening on campus in line with the awareness day.

Awareness Calendar 2024-25

Collaboration

As a club organization on your high school campus, you are one of many different groups of students with a mission. Whether they be an academic, cultural, or hobby oriented club, there is plenty of room for collaboration! 

A great way to expand the conversations surrounding mental health could be collaborating with cultural clubs on campus to discuss cultural stigma. You can connect with the cultural clubs and see if they would be interested in collaborating on a cultural stigma presentation. This presentation can be developed through research and cross collaboration with your club the cultural club and your local NAMI Affiliate to ensure you are providing your audience with accurate and culturally relevant content. You can also empower the cultural club leader to lead the presentation. Consider scheduling a cultural stigma presentation during one of the cultural heritage months. 

You could also talk to your psychology teachers to see if they would like to collaborate on an event to talk about mental health as a career. Many students are still searching for their calling and this could be a great introduction to the many ways a person can work in the mental health field.

Presentation Ideas

Not all club meetings or events have to have an activity component. Your club leaders can provide an educational presentation or bring in your local NAMI Affiliate to provide a presentation. Here are some ideas you can bring to your club:
 

• Campus Mental Health Resources
• How to support a friend
• Developing Personal Boundaries
• Importance of Self-Care
• Communicating Your Needs
• NAMI Ending the Silence- Talk with your local affiliate about getting trained as a presenter or bringing in someone to present

Click here for a downloadable PowerPoint template.

For more ideas, download the Planning Your School Event.