Member Login
Search

2020 Poster Sessions
“Leading Forward to Recovery:” 
How Librarians Aid Adolescent Mental Health Literacy

 

Intended Audience

Public Libraries, Academic Libraries, Media Center/School Libraries
 

Poster Summary and Objectives

Can bibliotherapy aid in promoting mental health literacy skills of adolescents?

To answer this question, we developed a bibliotherapy library within a residential pediatric behavioral health center. Mumbauer and Kelchner (2018) suggest that bibliotherapy can help promote mental health literacy in adolescents by increasing knowledge of mental health disorders and distress, presenting coping mechanisms, and developing social emotional competence.

Understanding how bibliotherapy can be utilized to improve adolescent mental health literacy is important, because according to the Centers for Disease Control, diagnosis of anxiety and depression have continued to increase among 6-17-year olds (CDC, 2019). Librarians can aid their adolescent patrons in accessing literature that provides a “window, mirror, and sliding glass door” to their unique experiences as they work towards recovery.

Our poster, therefore, has three objectives:

1. Identify bibliotherapy tracks and provide bibliotherapy resources for collection development which can be utilized in different library settings.
2. Present the creation and evolution of the tagging system developed to aid adolescent mental health literacy.
3. Describe the development and influence of a Reader’s Advisory project on youth mental health literacy skills.
By examining the success of a bibliotherapy-rooted library in an adolescent behavioral health facility, our poster strives to provide a model for bibliotherapy collection development that any librarian could utilize with adolescents across multiple library settings.

Resources
CDC. (2019). Data and Statistics on Children's Mental Health. Retrieved from
https://www.cdc.gov/childrensmentalhealth/data.html
Mumbauer, J., & Kelchner, V. (2018). Promoting Mental Health Literacy through Bibliotherapy in School-Based Settings. Professional School Counseling, 21(1), 85–94. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.usf.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1163847&site=eds-live

 

Presenter

Brittany Baum, University of South Florida

  • Brittany Baum is an MLIS student and Graduate Assistant specializing in School Media and Youth Services. She is a member of the library team that provides services in the bibliotherapy library where the project was conducted. In addition to everyday library operations, her responsibilities include collection development and analysis and continued development of the tagging system. She has also developed group programming at the facility.

Janet Chan, University of South Florida

  • Janet Chan is an MLIS student and Graduate Assistant specializing in Health Information. She has been a member of the library team at the bibliotherapy library since its inception. In addition to everyday library operations, her responsibilities at the library have included initial planning, physical set up, initial collection development, cataloging, and development of tagging system. She has also developed group programming and completed the Reader’s Advisory project utilized at the facility.