I’m asking you to sign this campaign and securing a true GIANT win this season!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by showing support for a really good cause!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Show some heart!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is an anti-cyberbullying campaign designed to empower all individuals and certainly including students to reflect before they engage online, promoting emotional intelligence and respect across the digital landscape.

Our initiative promotes a positive message of respect and grace in the digital space. Please strongly consider signing the pledge and pass it along to your friends and colleagues.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Arjun Viswanathan PMHNP-BC, MBA

Founder 247Mental.com

 

Here are some of the details.

National Anti-Cyberbullying Week

Goals: Raise awareness of cyberbullying’s impact, encourage responsible online behavior, and empower individuals to take action through reflection and emotional intelligence.

This initiative “Reflect Then Connect,” promotes emotional intelligence, empathy, and kindness in both digital and personal interactions.

The campaign is grounded in three essential steps:

1. Mirror a Mile: Encouraging individuals to walk in someone else’s shoes and experience the world from their perspective. This develops empathy, helping students, adults, and organizations understand the challenges, struggles, and experiences of their peers, both in person and online.

2. Reflect: After gaining this perspective, we ask individuals to pause and reflect. Reflection fosters self-awareness and helps people understand their own emotional responses and biases. By taking this time to reflect, they learn to manage their impulses and make more mindful choices.

3. Then Connect: The final step is to connect, whether it’s building stronger relationships with peers/fellow colleagues, contributing positively in online discussions, or simply treating others with respect. It’s about engaging in a way that’s thoughtful, intentional, and grounded in empathy.

Empathy, reflection, and connection are all vital for students, adults, and organizations to address both the challenges of the digital age and everyday relationships. I believe these values are important for all human beings for we all need to connect. If you also believe in handling our human connection with care, please consider allowing yourself a break and…

Signing the pledge. Dedicate it to someone who positively impacted you and share!

Cyberbullying: By The Numbers

1. Prevalence: According to research, about 37% of young people between the ages of 12 and 17 have been bullied online at least once.
2.  Frequency: Around 30% of people who have experienced cyberbullying have been targeted more than once.
3. Platforms:
   • Instagram is reported to be the most common platform for cyberbullying, with 42% of teenagers experiencing harassment on this app.
   • Facebook follows at 37%, Snapchat at 31%, and Twitter at 9%.
4. Gender Differences:
   • Girls are more likely to be victims of cyberbullying than boys, with 15% of girls and 6% of boys reporting being bullied online multiple times.
   • Teenage girls report experiencing more emotional forms of bullying, such as spreading rumors, whereas boys report more direct forms of bullying.
5. Mental Health Impact: Victims of cyberbullying are almost 2 to 9 times more likely to experience suicidal thoughts than those who haven’t been bullied.
6. School Impact: 1 in 10 teens drops out of school due to repeated bullying, including cyberbullying.
7. Reporting: Only 1 in 10 victims of cyberbullying report the incident to a trusted adult, highlighting an underreporting issue.
8. Age Group: Cyberbullying is most prevalent among teens aged 13 to 15, though children as young as 8 have reported experiences of online harassment.
9.  Cyberbullying vs. Traditional Bullying: Research suggests that 16% of high school students have experienced both cyberbullying and physical bullying.
10. Parental Awareness: 40% of parents report that they are aware their child has been cyberbullied, while 60% of victims believe their parents do not know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Help The Honorable Governor Hochul continue her great work. She announced that her Youth Mental Health Advisory Board was accepting applications from interested children and teenagers however the application portal for the advisory board is now closed. Middle and high school students interested in mental health issues or with lived experience were previously encouraged to apply for this advisory board.

This initiative emerged following last year's statewide youth mental health listening tour and Youth Mental Health Summit. During those engagement sessions, young people communicated that they wanted their voices to be heard, and in response, Governor Hochul created the Youth Mental Health Advisory Board as part of the 2024 State of the State.

The Governor's Youth Mental Health Advisory Board will ensure that youth-informed best practices continue to be incorporated into New York’s public behavioral health programs and initiatives.

Protecting Children Online

Governor Hochul is continuing to advocate for the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation for Kids Act (SAFE for Kids Act), which she included in her FY25 Executive Budget. This groundbreaking proposal would regulate unhealthy social media usage by prohibiting platforms from providing addictive algorithmic feeds to kids without parental consent.

In 2023, the US Surgeon General said that social media can "have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents." This legislation would require social media companies to restrict the addictive features that harm young users while still allowing access to the platform and empower the Office of the Attorney General to bring actions forward for violators. Additionally, the New York Child Data Protection Act would prohibit online sites from collecting, using, sharing, or selling personal data of anyone under the age of 18 without their consent.

Expanding Access to Mental Health Care for Low-Income New Yorkers

Governor Hochul also announced measures to help low-income New Yorkers on Medicaid access mental health care. In the Governor’s Executive Budget, $15 million will be allocated annually to increase reimbursement rates for mental health services for children in DOH-licensed facilities and private healthcare practices, in addition to $27 million annually to support these same services for adults. These investments are designed to help these providers recruit and retain mental health practitioners to increase access for Medicaid members.

In addition, the Executive Budget includes $5 million annually to support School-Based Health Centers, with a subset of this funding dedicated specifically to support services related to mental health.

State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald said, “Governor Hochul’s commitment to expanding access to mental health services through Medicaid, and supporting school-based mental health clinics and health centers, will ensure New Yorkers have access to the emotional health services they need. These critical investments allow for increasing reimbursement rates for mental health services for children in State Health Department-licensed facilities and private healthcare practices, and also allow the Department the ability to continue to grow the mental health workforce.”

Governor Hochul’s $1 Billion Plan to Overhaul New York State's Continuum of Mental Health Care

Youth mental health has been a focus of Governor Hochul’s administration and is an important component of her $1 billion multi-year plan to strengthen New York State’s mental healthcare system. In the Fiscal Year 2024 Budget, she secured $30 million to expand mental health services for school-aged children throughout the state, including $20 million for school-based mental health services and $10 million to implement wraparound services training.

In addition, the Governor’s plan expanded HealthySteps, an evidence-based program that pairs pediatric physicians with child development specialist to provide universal services for children up to the age of 3 and their families in pediatric healthcare settings. Earlier this winter, the state Office of Mental Health awarded $7 million to establish 46 new sites in 19 counties and $10.7 million to expand 51 existing sites, with a goal of growing the program to serve roughly 354,000 children at 224 sites statewide by 2027.

 

The song Street Spirit (Fade Out) by Radiohead shares two themes that we shouldn’t shy away from. “Be a world child, form a circle” introduces a glimmer of hope or a call for unity, suggesting that one should embrace the collective human experience and form connections with others. The imagery of forming a circle evokes ideas of togetherness, wholeness, and protection and may serve as a reminder to seek unity and community in the face of life’s darkness and inevitability. Despite the despair expressed throughout the song, this line suggests the importance of forming human connections as a means of finding solace.

Finally, the idea of “fading out” can be seen as a resignation to the impermanence of life, suggesting that everything eventually returns to the void or fades from memory.

Transience and the Passage of Time carries with it the idea that everything in life is temporary. It is a meditation on how moments, relationships, and even people are fleeting, destined to fade away. This evokes both a sense of melancholy and a reminder to cherish the time we all do have.

 

 

Thank you for your time, consideration, and respect.