May is Mental Health Awareness Month and May 9 is proclaimed as Mental Health Day for Children, Youth and Their Families by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), this year’s theme, ‘Stigma Grows in Silence. Healing Begins in Community,’ ensures no one struggles alone. The NAMI website also promotes, “Your Story Can Spark Healing.”
Robin M. Pizzo is director of education at WKAR
The celebration and themes are powerful reminders of why the I Feel… series from WKAR Public Media is needed in children’s educational resources. Launched in May of 2025, the series of video shorts and supporting materials has been used by parents, educators and caregivers supporting children in building emotional awareness. Later this month, WKAR presents a second season of the series, I Feel Talks…, which will debut at the upcoming event, “Youth and Mental Health Wellness: A Community Conversation,” at 6:30 p.m. on May 14 at WKAR on the campus of Michigan State University. The videos will be available free online that same day.
Research shows that mental health and wellness begin at birth. This is why the first season of I Feel… features young children as they identify, express and manage their emotions by sharing a specific feeling and how that feeling presents in their bodies. Childhood development experts from mid-Michigan provide strategies to manage the feeling in each video. Feelings shouldn’t carry negative or positive labeling. However, the way in which we manage those feelings can be viewed as negative or positive. Therefore, the experts provide suggestions like speaking with a trusted adult and taking deep balloon breaths as helpful approaches to staying mentally healthy.
In the second season, I Feel Talks… takes the next step in providing mental health wellness resources by having youth talk with one another about big and small moments and how they affect their emotions. A community expert presents suggestions to manage the emotion, but the focus is the shared story, because stories can spark healing. This aligns to NAMI’s Mental Health Awareness celebration, “every story shared turns silence into connection, and connection into healing.”
When WKAR developed the I Feel series, we knew the short-form programming would make a significant contribution to positive youth mental health outcomes. As a career-long educator, I have first-hand knowledge of the need to allow children to share their stories. This is especially important for children whose lived experiences include the experiences their families and parents are facing. These can include celebration for an achievement or adversities such as homelessness, sickness, unemployment, addiction and grief. Often children carry these circumstances in the mind and body without support to help manage.
When children are provided the opportunity to talk about anything important to them in a judgement free environment, healing and solutions bubble to the surface. In I Feel Talks… children discuss topics that include their dreams, new adventures, bullying, tough times, teamwork, and community sadness, to name a few. The simple act of sharing their emotions is a powerful strategy toward mental health wellness, and communicating is vital to social-emotional growth and development. A listening ear, an empathetic nod, and a high five for sharing is sometimes all that is needed for a child to feel seen and heard. Supporting children with strategies to manage feelings due to life experiences scaffolds early childhood development and social-emotional growth.
My hope is that I Feel Talks will guarantee every child is free to share their story and is supported with all the resources needed for a whole and healthy life. For more information, check out wkar.org/i-feel.
Robin M. Pizzo is director of education at WKAR.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Viewpoint: Youth and mental health awareness, a community conversation
