Essay Contest Urges Teens To Think About Friends’ Lives

What happens when a teen divulges a confidence that a friend is planning to kill herself, and the teen is not informed of the outcome? “You wonder endlessly about the correctness of your choice. . . [but you also realize that] you have no right not to inform someone. . . .If one believes that someone is valuable, they will do everything imaginable to ensure that their life is preserved.”

So wrote Miriam Firunts of Hoover High School in Glendale, Calif., in an essay last year. Her essay took first place in APA Alliance’s national 2002-03 “When Not to Keep a Secret” essay contest. The purpose of the competition was to get teens around the country to ponder the importance of divulging a friend’s confidence—even at the risk of losing that friendship—that he or she is planning to commit suicide.

The 2002-03 national essay contest was the fifth such contest sponsored by the APA Alliance. Previous first-place winners were Cynthia Ailiff of Kentucky, Amatise Wiley of Pennsylvania, Lance Jones of Colorado, and Kevin Dillon of Kentucky.

Now still another “When Not to Keep a Secret” essay competition is under way—for the 2003-04 school year. Organizations that are helping to promote the contest include the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Medical Association Alliance, parent-teacher associations, chapters of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, and chapters of the National Mental Health Association.

The “When Not to Keep a Secret” essay contest is one part of the APA Alliance’s National High School Essay Project. It is being funded by he American Psychiatric Foundation, APA’s charitable arm, through May 2005.

“With the project,” said Rosalind Hayes, president of the APA Alliance and founder of the essay project, “psychiatrists can meet with ninth- and 10th-grade students in an informal environment in which psychiatrists can replace myth with the facts regarding people with mental illnesses and its current treatment. Within this milieu psychiatrists free students from the stigma associated with psychiatry and mental illness as perpetrated by the media for decades and by closeted family secrets.”

The essays will be rated by nationally recognized leaders in psychiatry, media, literature, and civic affairs, according to Alicia Muñoz, contest chair. The first prize is a state-of-the-art computer system and printer. The winner will be honored at the joint luncheon of the APA Assembly and Board of Trustees on Sunday, May 2, during APA’s 2004 annual meeting in New York City.

Although the deadline for submitting essays to the contest is February 28, it is not too late for APA district branches as well as individual APA members to lend the contest support and participate in the educational aspects of the project.

More information about the project is posted on the Web at www.apaAlliance.org. ▪