The STARR Coalition is excited to open nominations for their 2nd Annual Stop the Stigma Champion Award.

The STARR Stop the Stigma Champion award will be presented to a high school student that has distinguished themselves by one or several of the following:

• • Demonstrated leadership and courage in openly discussing mental health.

• • Raised awareness about mental health challenges and educated others on the importance of mental well-being.

• • Fostered a non-judgmental and empathetic environment where individuals feel safe seeking help and support.

• • Exhibited compassion and provided support to peers facing mental health issues.

• • Inspired positive change and created a lasting impact on the school community regarding mental health attitudes and practices.

Fill out and submit the form in the right column to nominate a Stop the Stigma Champion!

⇢ A STARR community member may only nominate one student per year.
⇢ Student nominee may be unaware of their nomination, as this will be a spontaneous action noteworthy of nomination.
⇢ Student must be attending high school full time.
⇢ Those nominating the student should work with the young adult’s parent/teacher in order to confirm aspects of the nomination (an example being given permission to share social media posts, pictures, names, etc.) and to help assess backstory for student’s ‘why’; the goal being to maintain the surprise of the award recipient at all times.
⇢ The nomination will be submitted to the STARR Stop the Stigma Champion Award Committee, led by Leslie Franceschi (Chair) and 3 STARR community volunteers, composed of at least one representative from a clinical site, pharmaceutical company and advocacy group.
⇢ The nomination should include rationale for the award: what did the student do, how did their action impact the mental health awareness and wellness initiative, how did it impact their community and how will this student’s actions continue into adulthood.
⇢ The Committee will assess all nominations for appropriateness and follow up with any questions to the submitters; the submitters will work with the parents/teachers in confidence.
⇢ The Committee will review all nominations for the recipient of the annual award and notify the nominator of the winning nominee by May 1st.
⇢ The award recipient may be contacted for newsletter interview (they may decline and the article will simply repeat the nomination submission on record); the newsletter may contain a picture of the award winner if granted permission by parent and/or recipient.

The winner of the 2023 STARR Stop The Stigma Champion award was Megan Beck

On May 1, 2023, Megan posted a story about her ongoing mental health challenges to raise funds for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention during Mental Health Awareness Month. In her post, Megan talked about her struggle with her mental health: her inside not matching her outside, obtaining counseling, support from family, and understanding that her path is better at the moment, but could change at any time. She took a personal crisis and turned it into an opportunity to share how mental illness doesn’t discriminate and mental health is fluid – happy today, sad tomorrow. She indicated that there was much trial and error in achieving wellness through therapy, medication and family support.

Before and especially since her post, Megan has been contacted regularly by her peers, who are struggling with their own mental health journeys. Although she herself can’t see why, Megan has become a beacon of hope for her peers; others feel a connection and safe in speaking with her about their own struggles. Megan stresses that mental health is an ongoing process, with multiple factors leading to success; it takes work.

The following is Megan’s Facebook Post May 1, 2023 (copied from the original, using original formatting and grammatical errors):

for anyone that knows me, they know that i like to keep it real. i tell it how it is and i speak my mind. but, for the past year and a half i have been struggling to “keep it real.” i’ve had an internal battle that i’ve been struggling with, and i’ve only told a few close people out of the fear of judgement or the ‘why’ questions. i’ve been in therapy for the past year and a half and have been on antidepressants for the last 6 months. i was scared to tell people this because i didn’t want their image of me to change – the girl who was always smiling ear to ear & always laughing ready to tell a joke. but that’s not how i felt on the inside. on the inside, i was broken. i was numb. i didn’t want to be here anymore. i thought all my problems would go away if i was gone. i quickly learned that’s not true. after a lot of trial and error, i am now at a place where i am happy. where i can finally be myself – i honestly never thought that i would get to this place & i’m pretty darn proud of myself for getting here. i still have my bad days & anxiety episodes where i just cry and cry. but, unlike before i now know that those are just small chapters in my big, big book of life. please please be kind to everyone because you never know what someone else is going through [green heart emoji]

every year, 56.2 million americans struggle with mental health related illnesses & most of them don’t have the access to the healthcare and medication that they need to thrive and live every day to the fullest…it’s time to make a change! my hope is that the stigma around mental health will change and instead of calling people weak for speaking out about their problems, i hope you call them strong and worthy of happiness [green heart emoji]

also huge shout out to my rock Stacey Gunther Beck – i would not be here without her [pink heart emoji] she is my best friend and i love her to the moon

“A semicolon is used when an author could’ve chosen to end their sentence, but chose not to. The author is you and the sentence is your life.” ~ Project Semicolon [green heart emoji]

[At the end of her post is the link to the the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention fundraiser that Megan selected for her event.]”

Megan has received the first annual STARR Stop the Stigma Champion honor due to her bravery in the light of potential criticism, her ability to shine as a beacon of hope to her peers, and for actively fostering an environment that destigmatizes mental illness. Megan, who will be attending Salisbury University, Maryland in the fall, for nursing, will be able to share these very strong traits with her peers, patients, and her community in her ongoing journey.

Megan has raised more than $500 for AFSP.