California Health & Human Services Agency Releases Progress Report Highlighting First 18 Months of the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative California Health & Human Services

Despite the potential for schools to expand access to evidence-based mental health services, the above challenges have contributed to the limited uptake and sustainment of evidence-based mental health interventions (Cook et al., 2019; Owens et al., 2014). In 2022, the federal government responded to these growing concerns by investing one billion dollars over five years to support school-based initiatives focused on youth mental health, including initiatives designed to expand the school mental health workforce and to increase access to evidence-based and culturally relevant mental health services (The White House, 2022). These include establishing peer support programs, promoting mental health education in schools, and involving families in community workshops. With the expected increase in MHC among adolescents, more psychosocial programs with an emphasis on social and leisure activities are needed to provide an adequate response to the rising need for the promotion of mental health among adolescents. Scant attention has been paid to services that provide leisure and/or social activities in community-based rehabilitation services for adolescents with MHC.

• We also excluded programs that only provided therapy services or therapeutic interventions since they do not provide leisure and/or social activities in the community.
• Explore inspiring grantee highlights, youth-created materials, and the partnerships making a real impact across California.
• “This is brand new for schools,” Sen. Caroline Menjivar, a Van Nuys Democrat, said during the hearing.
• It should be noted that except for India, all the programs are from developed and relatively high-resource countries.

Common mistakes to avoid in program development include inadequate community engagement, unclear objectives, and insufficient evaluation methods. These methods provide a comprehensive view of program effectiveness and areas for improvement. Focus on inclusive programs that address diverse needs, promote awareness, and encourage participation. Community involvement https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2023/call-national-strategy-strengthen-youth-behavioral-health-workforce amplifies resources, creating a more supportive environment for youth. This approach leads to improved mental health outcomes and a greater sense of belonging among participants. They also ensure services are culturally relevant and tailored to diverse populations.

This study confirms that programs operate adolescent-oriented facilities that are characterized by a welcoming friendly style and atmosphere, and offer content aimed to provide a relaxed, appealing non-clinical physical space to enable these adolescents to feel safe and comfortable (26). These programs provide adolescents with opportunities to interact with their peers, acquire new skills, and enhance their well-being. The program produced a website that enables youth to conduct a dialog on mental health, share personal stories, express their thoughts and emotions through arts and drawings, and ask and receive help (see Table 3, Item 8). The team also provides social skill acquisition groups, short-term therapy, and a mentoring project where soldiers prepare adolescents with MHC for military service (see Table 3, Item 7).

In step 1, the first author (HT) familiarized herself with the entire dataset through an iterative process of reading through all the information available on each program. Therefore, we searched the Internet for the program’s official website, which was sometimes also short or vague, which thus obligated us to search for more information on the Internet. When a program’s name was identified, we searched Google Scholar for more studies about it. However, some of these records led to reference list and citation searches, which yielded one program. This accounts for 13% of global morbidity among adolescents (1), and its prevalence is expected to increase (2). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice.

Integrated youth health care: “One Stop Shop”

This inclusive strategy is aimed to provide mental health services to any adolescent in distress, regardless of diagnosis. Another challenge was the difficulty locating programs for adolescents with MHC, because the related terms (e.g., mental illness, mental health conditions, etc.) are sometimes avoided, possibly to prevent labeling. In recent years, more programs have begun implementing peer support in their services (51, 53). Some programs use their online presence to encourage user empowerment by providing a venue for youth to express themselves, share personal stories, offer peer support and serve as a platform for public health stigma reduction campaigns. Studies show that leisure activities can promote empowerment, a quest for meaning and improved social relations with peers and the community (46), and that self-selected activities are essential because they can enhance engagement and subjective well-being in adolescents (47). Some programs are held in attractive youth centers (drop-in/hubs) equipped for leisure time activities and have essential facilities such as kitchen and computers.

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Finally, programs and researchers sometime use different terminology to describe their target population (e.g., youth with MHC/issues/difficulties, mental illness, serious mental disorder etc.), and varying definitions of the service. Holding events in the community by and for adolescents may raise community awareness about mental health and stigma. Service providers may also gain from engaging members of the broader community in programs (17, 37). These programs encourage adolescents to get involved in campaigns to reduce stigma through events in the community and the media.

Clean Energy Access: LA County TECH Grant: Round 2

Note that the concept of “community” in CBR includes not only the physical neighborhood but also the social networks and support structures that surround individuals. To provide as broad an overview as possible, we included all the programs that met the criteria even when their description was scarce. We provide a narrative description of the programs in the Findings section because the description of program characteristics varied depending on the information that was available from various sources.