MHS student among leaders of national effort

CLINTON — Daelyn Edge, a senior at Midway High School (MHS), has been selected from hundreds of applicants to serve on the nine-member National Youth Advisory Board for Sandy Hook Promise (SHP). The prestigious board consists of high school Students Against Violence Everywhere (SAVE) Promise Club leaders who advise on the Know the Signs program enhancements while guiding the activities and engagement of clubs and members nationwide. This is Edge’s second year serving on the board.

Edge, who has been a member of her high school’s SAVE Promise Club for three years, credits MHS teacher and SAVE Promise Club co-advisor Pinda Byrd with encouraging her to join SAVE. “SAVE focuses on promoting healthy mental health habits to prevent violence in schools,” said Edge. “And that’s something I’ve always been passionate about. I saw so many kids struggling and knew they needed an outlet or safe space.” Through Byrd, the Midway student has learned about the SAVE club at the school and decided, on a whim, to join. She attended her first state SAVE convention with Byrd and other MHS SAVE club members, and that’s where her passion for mental health was ignited.

“After the convention, Mrs. Byrd encouraged me to apply to be part of the National Youth Advisory Board for Sandy Hook Promise,” recalled Edge. “I really didn’t think I’d be chosen to serve on the board because it’s an extremely competitive application process, and it was my first time trying for a national-level position.”

Byrd shared that “Daelyn is an awesome advocate for the SAVE Promise Club here at our school and works very hard to spread information and plans activities that showcase her true belief of the standards of SAVE Promise Clubs and Sandy Hook Promise. She is an amazing student who has a smile on her face and greets everyone with “Hello, Beautiful People!”. She has recruited so many to our club that we have grown from 20 last year to 95 this year.”

Daniel Cervantes, the MHS Spanish teacher and SAVE Promise Club co-advisor, has been instrumental in providing additional support and resources for Edge to develop further and expand the club.

Mr. Cervantes has played a pivotal role in guiding and supporting the club’s activities this year,” acknowledged Edge. “The club has been able to thrive, giving students resources and support to take proactive measures in promoting safety and preventing violence within our school and community.”

Edge has also been able to help grow MHS’s SAVE Club from five members to over 90. “I was constantly doing things with SAVE,” she said. “I was here a lot during the summer, just getting things done and working nationally. It was very nice because I was being trained in different states about mental health and services.”

Now in her second year serving on the national board, Edge has spent most of her high school career finding out how much she loves to help others with their mental health and hopes to one day become a psychologist. Serving on the National Youth Advisory Board (YAB) takes many hours of service during the school year. On average, most members contribute more than 300 hours of time to the YAB, working with their local Club on SHP’s national call-to-action weeks, Start With Hello Week and Say Something Week, as well as planning for the National Youth Violence Prevention Week and annual National SAVE Promise Club Youth Summit. Past YAB members have organized town halls with local officials and first responders, while others have testified before Congress on pending student safety legislation.

She also serves as a youth leader at the Center for Disease Control’s National Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) Learning Collaborative (LC), representing Sampson County Schools and North Carolina. The WSCC framework is a comprehensive, student-centered approach to advancing health equity that focuses on amplifying youth voices by engaging youth as collaborative leaders in advancing youths’ emotional well-being.

The LC will use an equity-driven, community-of-practice approach to facilitate shared learning and continuous quality improvement within the community of schools. Sampson County Schools Project Activate program utilizes the WSCC model.

Earlier this year, Edge traveled to Washington, DC, to meet with North Carolina’s federal Congressman to discuss ways Congress could allocate additional funds to The STOP the School Violence Act 2018. She will return to DC in April as a panelist for an event hosted by SHP. She is also scheduled to be a panelist at the Community of Practice Call in April with the University of Maryland School of Medicine, National Center for School Mental Health.

At MHS, SAVE isn’t just an after-school club that meets once a month. Its work keeps its members busy throughout the school year. “We do a lot of get-to-know-you things and things to connect students at the school,” Edge commented. “We do the connection tree, which is a paper replica of a tree located in the guidance hall, and you put your handprint on it as a pledge to be against violence, and there are a lot of activities that are meant to connect.”

Expounding on more SAVE activities, she described that a lot of the activities are geared towards bringing students together who wouldn’t necessarily be together. “At the beginning of each year, we have Start with Hello Week, which is meant to bring students together by spreading kindness with a simple Hello,” she noted. “ Another activity we did was you gave someone a SAVE-themed pencil. We had activities where students hung No Stigma posters throughout the hallways. We had “Don’t be Mean Wear Green Day,” and everyone was showing up in crazy green.”

Last Christmas, the SAVE Club participated in the Falcon Children’s Home parade and donated gifts to the home’s residents. Although the focus of the SAVE Club is students, its members are sure to include adults as well. “During Teacher Appreciation Week, we hung banners and giant posters around the school thanking teachers for being our trusted adults,” recalled Edge. “Just appreciating that teachers have been able to help us find trusted adults, even if we couldn’t find them in home environments.”

Not wanting to rest on her laurels, Edge would like to see SAVE Clubs offered in all Sampson County Schools, starting with elementary schools. “One of the biggest things that I’m learning while training other young people and being part of the national board is that in any state I’ve gone to, a lot of this is more preventable if you learn from a young age how to handle your mental health,” she shared. “Because a lot of times kids are learning about mental health resources at 15 and 16 years old when they already are stuck in their habits, and it’s much harder to get out of that cycle. Whereas, if you learn at an elementary level, you grow up with those healthy habits, and it’s easier to cope when you learn from that age.”

“Having a SAVE Club is free, and it’s so easy, and it can be adaptable to any school environment,” she explained. “All you need is a couple of students who are willing to participate and a teacher or adult who is willing to help run it. Most of it is student-run anyway, especially at the high school level. We talked with Ms. Byrd and Mr. Cervantes about what we would like to do or try, and they helped us get it done.”

As a nationally trained youth advisor and advocate for SHP and SAVE, Edge added, “I’d be willing to help schools get their club started because it’s that important to me.”

Sandy Hook Promise (SHP) envisions a future where all children are free from school shootings and other acts of violence. As a national nonprofit organization, SHP’s mission is to educate and empower youth and adults to prevent violence in schools, homes, and communities. Creators of the life-saving, evidence-informed “Know the Signs” prevention programs, SHP teaches the warning signs of someone who may be in crisis, socially isolated, or at risk of hurting themselves or others and how to get help. SHP also advances school safety, youth mental health, and responsible gun ownership at the state and federal levels through nonpartisan policy and partnerships. SHP is led by several family members whose loved ones were killed in the tragic mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012.