This story is written by Rawan Elbaba, a digital producer at PBS Newshour’s Student Reporting Labs.
For many, mental health is a fraught subject. As a result, it’s become something we don’t really talk about, but that silence can be misleading — the silence might make you think you’re alone in struggling with your mental health. In reality, 17 percent of youth will experience a mental health disorder, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. And, according to a 2018 Pew survey, 70 percent of teens say that anxiety and depression are major problems among their age group.
Talking about mental health can help break down stigma, which is exactly what a new teen-led podcast aims to do. In On Our Minds, a podcast series by PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs (SRL), 16 year-olds Noah Konevitch and Zion Williams offer first-person narratives and introspective discussions with experts on what mental health looks like for young people like themselves.
“It’s OK not to be OK,” Konevitch says in one of the episodes, in an effort to normalise talking about mental health.
First season
The first season of On Our Minds delves into the biggest mental health challenges young people face, from race and identity, to self care, school, and depression. It was created in partnership with WETA’s Well Beings, a multi-year mental health public awareness campaign that works with local PBS stations across the country to deliver local programming.
In each episode, Noah and Zion guide listeners through stories told by high schoolers about the teenage experience. How do you deal with the highs and lows of virtual learning during a pandemic? What’s the connection between racial inequality and mental health? How do we manage an overload of information coming at us online?
Asia Jackson
In one of the episodes, actress and social media influencer Asia Jackson reflects on her own struggles with anxiety and depression, and how going to therapy and taking medication helped her.
“I spent the past few years thinking that life was always going to be this way and life was always going to be this miserable and terrible, and then I went to therapy and it got a little bit better. And then I went on medication and it got so much better,” said Jackson. “Your life is never always going to be this way.”
Other episodes talk about the difficulty of expressing unfamiliar feelings as the pandemic continues to rage on.
“I would just sit in my room and kind of just cry and be upset and be like, why is this happening?” said Jackson Saleh, a student from Michigan. “I never experienced being a teenager in a pandemic and not being able to see your friends and not being able just to live your life like you want to.”
This kind of honesty is what the creators of the podcast were hoping for by using audio, rather than video, to tell a story. Student Reporting Labs Youth Media Producer Briget Ganske, who helped produce the podcast alongside Noah and Zion, says it lends anonymity and encourages vulnerability.
“The podcast medium was a great choice for young people talking about mental health,” says Ganske. “Students could share candidly and honestly about their experiences in a more anonymous way.”
Each episode also features a mental health expert who helps Noah, Zion and listeners understand different mental health conditions and gives tips for self care.
Bonus episode
In a special bonus episode of On Our Minds, psychologist and author Tara Brach leads listeners through a guided meditation to help recognise, center and acknowledge anxiety and emotions.
“It helps to send the message through your hand to your heart, and it might be simply if it’s anxiety [saying], ‘thank you for trying to protect me, but I’m OK right now.’”
Summing up her experience hosting On Our Minds, Zion said, “Doing this podcast helped me learn that it is so important to take time for myself and be aware of my emotions.
“And realising that by becoming aware of my emotions and how they are affecting me, I simultaneously improve my mental health for the better.”