Program Goal
The goal of the Grace Magill Project is to support schools in creating an environment that supports a holistic approach to wellness in six key areas:
-
Emotional
- Social
- Physical
- Intellectual
- Occupational
- Spiritual
Focus Areas
The Grace Magill Project promotes:
- Educating students and eliminating stigmas associated with mental illness.
- Building peer-to-peer support.
- Understanding, recognizing, and responding to signs of mental illness.
History of the Grace Magill Project
The Grace Magill Project was established at Edgewood Center for Children and Families (Edgewood) immediately following the death of Grace Caldwell Magill, who died of suicide on January 1, 2005 at age 15. Serving as a tribute to Grace’s spirit, generosity, and many accomplishments in her brief, but full, life, the Magill Fund was established to support children, youth, families, schools, and communities in implementing effective school-based programs that build and support wellness and resilience.
In January 2006, the fund underwrote an Edgewood-sponsored educational summit, inviting experts in the field of mental health and suicide to participate in an informed discussion about school-based suicide prevention programs. As a result of these discussions, a decision was made that the Grace Magill Project would concentrate not on suicide prevention, but on efforts that would build well-being and resilience; de-stigmatize mental illness; give students and teachers information on warning signs of mental illness; and increase mechanisms for peer-to-peer support.
Edgewood has provided a range of mental health, prevention, and capacity-building services in San Francisco schools since 1992, and currently works in 23 city schools. Our experience has taught us that boilerplate approaches to provision of services in schools are not effective. Most schools request services when an individual student (or group of students) displays a need that the school lacks the capacity to deal with. Most often, schools request mental health services to address these needs. We have learned, however, that therapy is not always the answer.
Following the summit, Edgewood’s project design team researched and reviewed best practice models of suicide prevention, identifying factors that lead to suicide as well as preventive and protective factors that reduce suicidal behavior. The generous support offered to the project by numerous donors has allowed us the flexibility to develop a research-based model to tailor wellness support to individual schools, without having to observe the constraints imposed by public funding.
The Grace Magill Project helps teenagers. The program supports schools in creating an environment that supports a holistic approach to wellness including: emotional, social, physical, intellectual, occupational, and spiritual well-being. It also works to de-stigmatize mental health issues among teenagers and to create resources for teens in need.
Our Approach to Teen Wellness
The Grace Magill Project collaborates with schools to help:
• assess strengths and gaps in addressing adolescent well-being
• identify and bridge gaps in services which address adolescent well-being
• partner with other agencies and organizations
• implement programs and resources to meet those areas of need
The Grace Magill Project's program model is based on extensive research. A working group of experts reviewed current data on suicide, wellness, resource availability, assessment tools, research based prevention programs, risk screening instruments and a variety of wellness-building/de-stigmatization programs.
