Zine workshop a blueprint for youth engagement around mental health
A zine created by a youth participant in the November 2024 Youth Mental Health + Art Workshop hosted by Southern New Mexico Journalism Collaborative. (Photo by Loren Schoonover)
Guided art workshop offers kids a chance to express mental health on their own terms — and build community
If there’s anything I’ve learned during the past six months delving into an ongoing youth mental health crisis that’s affecting Southern New Mexico, along with the rest of the nation, it’s that today’s Gen Z kids are going through a LOT.
They spent several of years of their young lives in a pandemic — a chaotic time that turned so much upside down. Even before that, they faced challenges aplenty with the rise of social media’s popularity and how platforms like TikTok, YouTube and Instagram have transformed our social interactions and opened the doors wide to internet bullies. These are some of the challenges I and other journalists working with the Southern New Mexico Journalism Project learned about during a reporting project made possible by a grant from the Solutions Journalism Network.
As part of our grant, we also had the chance to host an engagement event (or events) around the issue of youth mental health.
Participants in Youth Art + Mental Health event in early November 2024 created hand-made zines that they customized with artwork and collages to express their mental health. (Photo by Loren Schoonover)
For a while now, the nexus of art and mental health has been on my mind. I thought it would be neat to bring youth together in some way around the two. Our engagement coordinator, Loren Schoonover, helped connect SNMJC to local artist Raquel Madrigal, who also had an interest in working with youth.
From there, brainstorming led us to the idea of hosting a workshop for kids that gave them a chance to express their mental health by creating artwork. The workshop would not simply give kids the chance to express whatever they were feeling in the moment, which is indeed beneficial, but it would also equip them with a tool to use at any time in the future to support their mental health.
Raquel thought it would be great to teach participants how to make their own zines — simply folded pieces of paper that turn into blank canvases for creative expression. And so that’s what we did.
We decided to host the event in Anthony, New Mexico because many times youth in the rural areas have fewer opportunities and resources than their peers in larger cities. Vanessa Mobley Knox of Borderland Family Ties, an organization working on youth and family development that’s also a SNMJC participant, helped us to book a space in a Community Action Agency-owned building. Loren recruited participants by posting fliers in the community and by sending emails and texts.
A youth participant shows the zine he made during the Youth Art + Mental Health event hosted by SNMJC in early November 2024. (Photo by Loren Schoonover)
On a Saturday morning in early November, about a dozen people — kids, parents and grandparents — gathered to learn how to make staple-free zines.
Raquel and SNMJC supplied a range of art supplies: paper, scissors, markers, colored pencils, and glue sticks, as well as old magazines and newspapers.
Raquel led everyone through the steps of creating a zine and also provided prompts to spark internal reflection about one’s emotional state and mental health.
We provided lunch in the form of tacos and burritos from Taco Bell, chicken nuggets from Sonic, and some fruit, veggies and hummus.
A selection of zine-making supplies is seen at the Youth Art + Mental Health Workshop in early November 2024 in Anthony, New Mexico. (Photo by Loren Schoonover)
While mental health was a key theme, we didn’t bog the workshop down with lectures. We did make sure to mention the 988 crisis hotline and passed out little fliers about it that people could take home for future reference. We also took the opportunity to tell the group about our project and the solutions focus of our reporting.
Because this was our first time hosting such an event, I had no idea how it would go. It’d be a learning experience for us just as much as for the kids. The workshop started at 10:30 a.m. on a Saturday and ran through about 2 p.m. I was surprised at how fast it seemed to go and also at how much youth and caregivers both seemed to enjoy it.
Here are five observations from the event:
Kids still enjoy non-digital experiences. I grew up in the “late 1900s,” as some Gen Zer’s like to say, when the personal computer was just making its way onto the world stage and becoming part of our everyday lives. I and others of my so-called “Xennial” generation witnessed firsthand the rise of computers, the internet, handheld devices, and then social media. The younger members of Gen Z, meanwhile, were born into an era where much of the digital world already existed and had begun to capture increasingly large amounts of our collective time and energy. Because of this undeniable reality, I wondered if something like an arts workshop might be considered a relic of the past. However, by the level of engagement and interaction shown by people of all ages at the workshop, especially the youth, I think they still find these in-person, hands-on experiences meaningful.
Face-to-face connection is important. Social media can have the weird effect of making people feel more isolated, exactly the opposite of what its name implies. Perhaps because the digital depiction of people is simply a representation of them, like a shadow on the ground or an image in a mirror, we miss out on the face-to-face interaction and relationship-building that has defined human existence for millennia. The workshop offered that chance to kids in a low-pressure (or maybe “no pressure?”) setting, and it seemed to resonate.
Supporting youth happens one friendly interaction at a time. The process of growing up can be a daunting one even in the best of times. Everything changes fast, and there’s a lot to learn. It can be overwhelming. The stressors of today compound that. But when adults tell kids “it’s OK” to be experiencing whatever emotions or challenges they happen to be going through and “we’ll be here alongside you even if things are tough,” it’s a powerful message. Raquel did a great job of conveying this sentiment in the workshop in a friendly and fun way, and it created an inviting atmosphere in the room. It is in these seemingly small interactions that a sense of community is built.
The workshop format sparked both creativity and self-reflection. A zine is relatively simple to make, and kids had the options of drawing, writing, or creating a collage from used magazines and newspapers to fill its pages. To respond to the prompts and express one’s emotional state visually requires self-reflection. Self-reflection stirs awareness. And with awareness can come acceptance and, just possibly, progress. Somehow that self-reflective process is more fun because you know you’ll end up with a piece of unique art at the end. It was great to see the range of kids’ creations.
Caregivers found the event meaningful, too. While we initially envisioned the workshop catering to kids, some of their caregivers attended and participated in the zine-making. To our surprise, they had fun, too. It’s really an undertaking that transcends a person’s age, allowing people from different generations to work alongside one another while experiencing the benefits of expressing their mental health through art.
SNMJC supplied lunch for workshop participants. (Photo by Loren Schoonover)
All in all, it felt like a blueprint of sorts for youth engagement. We heard from several people that they’d like to attend or help organize another youth art and mental health workshop. We might try it in a different community. Please stay tuned!
Oh, and if you’re curious about how to make your own no-staples zine, check out the video below!
