Mental Health KT Board

The core value of the mental health KT board is never to be a decoration for examinations, or a science popularization display board that copies textbooks, but to be a lightweight psychological science popularization carrier that can hit daily emotional pain points, adapt to the needs of different groups of people, and come with ground-level adjustment methods. The most direct criterion to judge whether it is done well or not is whether people passing by are willing to stop and look at it for three more seconds, or even take out their mobile phones to take pictures of the method above.

Last year, I encountered a big pitfall when I helped the street office organize a popular science exhibition on youth psychology during the back-to-school season. The first draft produced by the psychology students of the university with whom we first contacted had "10 criteria for judging mental health" and "5 clinical manifestations of adolescent anxiety" printed on the entire page. The terminology was denser than the textbook. We thought it was professional enough at the time, so we printed it out and hung it on the bulletin board at the entrance of the middle school.

As a result, we were hung up for three days. Students passing by would either walk around or glance up and then lower their heads to check their phones. The cleaning lady even came over and asked us if we could move the board to "block everyone's use of the shared bicycles."

That’s when I realized that we had our priorities reversed.

There has been a lot of quarrel in the circle about what the mental health KT board should do.

Most academic consultants advocate rigor first, and the content must have academic basis, and they cannot give out "local methods" casually. If they mislead people with serious psychological problems, the consequences will be disastrous.； But social workers who spend their days doing front-line science popularization in communities and office buildings feel that before someone can read it before it can be considered useful, it is all terminology that everyone cannot understand. No matter how rigorous the board is, it is just a useless board.

Both sides are right. There is no need to argue about right or wrong, just find a balance.

We later tore down all those boards and redid them.

There is no terminology in the most conspicuous position, but an emoticon that everyone is familiar with: a little girl with a bun, holding a pen and writing homework frantically, with the text "You are rushing to do homework the day before school starts: on the surface you are as calm as an old dog, but on the inside you are so panicked that you are trembling". The small words next to it are "Don't bear the temporary anxiety, try 3 Minute Breathing Regulation: Breathe in for 4 seconds - Hold your breath for 4 seconds - Exhale for 6 seconds. I personally tested it when I was rushing for a due date, and my handwriting speed can be doubled." A small QR code was added to the lower right corner. When you scan it, it is a free mindfulness audio recorded by the psychology department of the university. It also includes the district's youth psychological assistance hotline.

Oh, by the way, we also deliberately left one-third of the space blank, posted a stack of sticky notes, and marked the words "Today's small blessings will not be wasted if they are written down."

Just such a board that didn't look very "serious" was filled with notes after being hung for a week: A student wrote, "I got 61 in my math test today and finally passed!" ”, a mother who picked up her child wrote, "My child didn't bother buying toys today, I was so moved that I wanted to cry." There was even a security guard who came over and wrote, "I was given a cooling subsidy today, and I went to have a drink at night."

The supervisor who had previously commented that we were not rigorous enough passed by and stood watching for ten minutes. Then he sent us a message back and said, "This seems to be a good idea."

Later, when we made KT boards for different places, we would first find out who was passing by.

Don’t put heavy content like “How to Prevent Depression” on the board downstairs in the office building. Everyone is tired enough from work. The first line they see when they look up says “Were you scolded by your boss today?” Don't hold it in, go to the stairwell and shout for 30 seconds, you will get 3 less nodules than if you hold it in all afternoon." Add a line of small words below: "If you can't find the energy to do things for 2 weeks in a row, don't do it. At the end of the article, there is a list of affordable psychological clinics in the city." It is both useful and not too offensive.

Some people have also expressed their opinions, saying whether this kind of entertainment expression will dispel the seriousness of mental illness and make people think that being really sick is "hypocritical"? Our response method is also simple. We just add a line of inconspicuous notes at the bottom corner of each board: "The above method is only suitable for daily mood swings. If you continue to be depressed and lose interest for more than 2 weeks, please seek professional medical help in time." This does not destroy the overall sense of relaxation, but also maintains the professional bottom line.

I have been working on a mental health KT board for almost two years, but I have never come up with any standardized template.

Sometimes you spend a long time looking for professional content for literature review, but no one will read it. Instead, you casually add the sentence "If you don't want to go to work, just fish for 5 minutes, there is no shame", which can be photographed and posted on WeChat Moments.

To put it bluntly, there is nothing fancy about making this thing. Just treat the person reading the board as your friend who is having an emotional moment around you. Don’t hold it back, don’t preach. If he can understand and use what you say, the board is not in vain.

Oh, by the way, last time we made a board at the community hospital, an aunt took a picture of the breathing method on it, and said that she would use it when she went home to her grandson who was going to take the college entrance examination. She said that her grandson had been suffering from insomnia recently, and she did sleep better after using it.

You see, just such a small thing is more satisfying than winning any award.