BOISE, Idaho — Starting the conversation around student mental health. College athletes at Boise State are joining forces with local high school students for the Broncobold Summit centered around breaking the stigma.
- Boise State Athletics hosted the annual mental health summit for six local high schools.
- Students prepared campaigns for National Suicide Prevention Week.
- Student ambassadors planned future events and initiatives focusing on mental health hoping to get their student body involved.
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story.)
Broncobold is a student-athlete initiative that started in 2019 at Boise State to reduce the stigma of mental health.
Since then the program has expanded.
Now hosting the Broncobold High School ambassador program.
Stephanie Donaldson is the assistant Athletic Director of Athletic Counseling & Performance Psychology, she says, "We bring them on campus to teach them how to start their own mental health initiatives at their schools and to take the program that they are learning today and put it through the community."
Students from six high schools across the Valley were invited to the Boise State campus to learn firsthand from Bronco athletes about how they prioritize their mental health.
I thought the focus was just student-athletes but being here and learning more about it it's kind of just for the full school as a whole and just understanding the fluctuating mental health that people have," says Emerson Shirey a junior at Boise High School.
At the summit students learned how to follow through with a schoolwide initiative, from an idea to reality.
Gannon Miller is a senior at Centennial High School, he says, "we were all like sitting there in the first two weeks of school like how we are going to do this how are we going to do that for instance like the ribbons that you've given us. You guys give us the resources that we can make those things possible and that it can work."
Throughout the afternoon students created a game plan on how they're going to organize future events and how to get their entire student body involved.
Boise High student Emerson Shirey, adds, "things like chalk the quad with like positive affirmations and even like the posted note thing where you can ask, what are you happy about and really think about those things and just influencing a community that will openly speak about mental health."
All participating schools will be leaving with a Broncobold box, which includes everything student leaders will need to jumpstart their events for National Suicide Prevention Week.
