Changing Mental Health Awareness into Action
Choose Love on Mental Health Action Day, Thursday, May 20th.
The Choose Love Action Plan offers support through social and emotional wellness programming to increase self-awareness and reduce stress.
About Mental Health Action Day
Though more people than ever are comfortable discussing mental health, finding effective resources and knowing how to get help remains a challenge.
Study after study shows that one of the hardest things to do is take the first action:
- whether it’s reaching out to a friend
- researching peer support groups
- sitting down on a therapist’s couch
- or calling a support line
Many people fall through the cracks in the space between awareness and action – particularly those who have been marginalized or underserved by existing institutions.
Everyone has mental health, and it is time we all take care of our emotional well-being in the same way we tend to our physical health, before we reach a moment of crisis.
THE STORY BEHIND THE MOVEMENT
Choose Love Movement is inspired by 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, his final acts of love, and his mother’s path of forgiveness after Jesse was killed in a school shooting.
Scarlett Lewis founded the Choose Love Movement after her son, Jesse, was murdered during the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy in December 2012.
It is one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history.
At six years old, Jesse, alongside 19 of his first-grade classmates and six educators, died.
Law enforcement said Jesse used his final moments to heroically save nine of his friends.
Shortly after his death, Scarlett decided to be part of the solution to the issues we’re seeing in our society today—and that also caused the tragedy.
She created the Choose Love Movement and became an advocate for character development and social and emotional learning (SEL), which teaches children how to manage their emotions, feel connected, and have healthy relationships.
Before his death, Jesse left a message on their kitchen chalkboard, “Norturting Helinn Love” (Nurturing, Healing Love).
When Scarlett learned that these words are included in the definition of “compassion” across all cultures, she realized that love, connection, and belonging are universal wants and needs that connect all of humanity.
With the guidance of Christopher Kukk, PhD, Dean of the Cormier Honors College for Citizen Scholars and Professor of Political Science at Longwood University, a Fulbright Scholar and author of “The Compassionate Achiever,” these three words led to the creation of a formula that can be used by anyone, at any time, anywhere in the world to manage their response to any situation.
These four character values are easy to learn.
When practiced, they strengthen the health and resilience of individuals, improve the community and culture of groups and promote a safer, more peaceful and loving world.