Hi everyone. It’s now been almost exactly a year since I wrote and posted this petition, with it garnering many, many supportive comments and signatures, for which I am eternally grateful for. I haven’t posted an update on here since right before the board meeting at Lincoln Park; I believe a part of me has been putting off writing this update, mostly out of not knowing how to condense the whirlwind of everything that occurred last February and March, but it also just stems from a lurking sense of failure – that what I had originally wanted as an outcome for this petition was never fully realized. But, I don’t think that should detract from what was accomplished here, and I thank you all for that. I want to use this update to highlight some key events pertaining to mental health initiatives at Lincoln Park since last year.

Since my last update, I attended the board meeting with one of my brothers last March, with many other supportive friends and LP students there in attendance. Due to enforced time constraints per speaker, it was very difficult to verbalize the sheer expanse of everything I wanted to bring up – comments from the petition, individual messages and emails I had received, my own frustrations and anger echoed in the petition, etc etc, and I know several other speakers shared the same feeling. Though the results of this meeting feel seemingly small in retrospect, I want to at least share them with you all, as they are a step in the right direction:

1. On 3/13/24, LP invited the parents of students to a night designated to mental health education and sharing resources regarding mental health and suicide warning signs – “The goal of the event is to share information and resources with Lincoln Park families, including strategies to recognize and respond to mental health challenges.” Invited guests included American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the Beaver County Zero Suicide Initiative, NAMI representatives, and many more. I sat in for this meeting and the accompanying presentations, and while I believe it would have greatly benefitted from allowing the actual students to be there in attendance, it was satisfying to see that at least the administration had made some effort to improve their mental health initiatives after hearing our complaints during the board meeting. I am unaware if there have been similar meetings since.
2. During this night, the Memorial Bench project was announced, in which the school will be building a bench to memorialize the students who have passed in recent years, including my brother Joe, Anita, Rain, and Maddox. To my knowledge, the school is still actively funding its construction, partially using funds from their Fun Lunches. 
3. There had been talk during the board meeting that the school was searching for another counselor to hire. Upon looking at the school’s official website recently, I noticed that they have added a specific section for Counseling, stating that they now offer on-site therapy appointments for students, “expanding counseling staff”, and have adopted partnerships with leading mental health organizations in the area. This is quite a huge milestone, and though I don’t know how these additions have specifically impacted the students, these are things that were simply not there previously. I would deeply appreciate any feedback from current students as to how these changes actually are affecting people, but externally, it does make me happy to see that some positive change resulted from all of this.

Please feel free to contact me at juliamarcellaa@gmail.com if you're curious about any of this, or would just like to talk. Thank you all so much for caring. It is everything.