A Lively Approach to Mental Health

Middle school can be a challenging time. For Vivian Wang, a second-year Harvard Medical School student, it was an experience that helped to shape her future. During her time in middle school, one of Wang’s closest friends was hospitalized for a month to receive mental health treatment.  

“After she returned to school, it was incredibly difficult for her to readjust,” Wang recalled. “Looking back, my classmates and I, with little to no understanding of how to support peers through mental health challenges, didn’t do enough to help her feel like she belonged again.” This experience ignited Wang’s passion for mental health. Since then, she has been dedicated to destigmatizing mental illness and empowering youth to lead healthier, more fulfilling lives. 

Beginning Mindful Exchanges

As the world turned upside down in the spring of 2020, Wang was an undergraduate student at Yale University. She along with other Yale students left campus to begin learning remotely. Loneliness and social isolation are associated with increased risk for early mortality. To help her classmates, Wang and one of her peers, Katherine Du, founded an organization called Mindful Exchanges to offer free mental health education seminars for students virtually during a time that many were lacking social connection. 

Mindful Exchanges began working with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater New Haven so that youth could learn virtually about mental health during this time of isolation and has collaborated with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the House of Liberal Arts Beyond Borders, an organization based in Japan. Through these partnerships Wang has engaged with youth all over the world, including communities where mental health is widely stigmatized.  

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“Once I got to medical school, I was really missing that community engagement aspect of my own learning,” said Wang. “When I heard about an opportunity to work with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston through the OCCME, I was so excited to reconnect with the program.” 

Around this same time Beth Frates, MD, FACLM, DipABLM, President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, put out a call for a student who could collaborate with her to teach youth around Boston about lifestyle medicine.  

“We combined forces,” Wang said. “I brought the mental health Mindful Exchanges curriculum that we already had and with her expertise in lifestyle medicine, we created this initiative called LIVELY.” 

LIVELY (Lifestyle Interventions Through Empowerment and Learning for Youth) is the first collaboration between Harvard Medical School, Harvard College, and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston. Allison Rosenstein, a recent graduate of Harvard College, serves as co-director of LIVELY and has led the undergraduate recruitment efforts and contributed to the curriculum. In 2024, LIVELY piloted a summer program with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston to create a 6-week program that covered the six pillars of lifestyle medicine (nutrition, physical activity, sleep, stress management, avoidance of risky substances, and social connection) all while emphasizing each pillar’s connection to mental health. The team of 15 passionate volunteers, comprised of Harvard Medical School and Harvard College students, visited the Yawkey Club of Roxbury and the Edgerley Family South Boston Club weekly. Each visit began with an opening reflection, followed by an activity, and concluded with a didactic. Through the program, students heard real-life stories and begin to think about how it related to their lives.  

“It might be difficult as a teenager to really take your health seriously,” Wang said. “Through these compelling anecdotes, we hope to convey the importance of preventative health.”  

LIVELY not only empowers teens to form healthy habits that will have lifelong benefits, but it also provides them with tools for social advocacy. By teaching kids about advocacy, they become equipped with the means to create change in their communities so that healthy habits are feasible and sustainable.  

LIVELY is continuing to grow. In addition to being endorsed by the HMS Office of Community-Centered Medical Education, LIVELY is also a 2024 recipient of the American Psychiatric Association Helping Hands grant, which will provide $5,000 to support the program’s ongoing efforts over the next year. The group plans to continue their work in South Boston and Roxbury and hopes to expand to other Boys & Girls Clubs sites around Boston.  

You can get involved 

LIVELY is always looking for volunteers. There are opportunities to lead sessions in person at the Boys & Girls Clubs sites and opportunities to help design future curriculum. During the academic year, programming will look a bit different than it did in the summer. By joining the LIVELY volunteers, you can help shape the fall program.  

“This is a really collaborative effort,” Wang said.  

If you are interested in empowering youth through LIVELY, email the Office of Community Centered Medical Education at OCCME@hms.harvard.edu. 

LIVELY’s acknowledgments 

LIVELY would not be possible without the hard work and dedication of its student volunteers. These individuals have contributed their time and talents to designing the curriculum, leading sessions, and fostering a sense of community among the youth they serve.  

Special thanks to: 

• Adrian Ke 

• Brammy Rajakumar 

• Brandon Campbell 

• Byron Gonzalez 

• Cameron Young 

• Cristian Gaines 

• Ellie Enichen 

• Jordan Tralins 

• Lillian Gordon 

• Malina Hatton 

• Micah Breiger 

• Noah Janfaza 

• Sammy Mustafa 

• Sojas Wagle 

We would also like to express our deepest gratitude to the dedicated staff at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston, whose unwavering support made this collaboration possible. 

Special thanks to: 

• Molly Herlihy, Associate Vice President of Operations, Impact, and Strategy 

• Andrea Swain, Chief Impact Officer 

• Mike Kennealy, Chief Strategy Officer and Senior Advisor 

• Mercedees Thompson, Young Leaders Lead at Yawkey Boys & Girls Club of Roxbury 

• Meredith Winter, Young Leaders Lead at Edgerley Family South Boston Boys & Girls Club 

• Josh Davis, Executive Director at Edgerley Family South Boston Boys & Girls Club 

• Alexis Armstrong, Volunteer Manager