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By creating an innovative health system and a new culture of health for the adolescent and young adult population, Stanford's Center for Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing is creating a model for the country in how to better support our young people.
Spring 2022
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Greetings friends,
We mourn the recent family tragedies as a result of gun violence in New York, Texas and California, yet struggle with the framing of these horrible events as the sole result of “mental illness.” As we together work to heal our children and families once more from this unique American trauma, we must continue to acknowledge the devastating impact of access to firearms in deaths by both homicide and suicide.
And while Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week and Mental Health Awareness Month bring important attention to the need to expand mental health support, we really require a Mental Health Awareness Year (or several consecutive ones) to more fully address the mental health needs of our children and youth. We are excited to finally see the prioritization of mental health supports for our young people, from our California counties declaring mental health a top priority to the California state commitment to youth mental health to the national focus from both the Surgeon-General and the President’s Unity agenda.
Our Center team has had the opportunity to contribute to the development of these youth mental health policy recommendations:
As we continue our Center efforts to:
- expand allcove centers across the state,
- educate journalists around the use of the TEMPOS Tool to prevent youth suicide contagion,
- expand Native Youth mental health services training through our ECHO collaboration,
- and support the expansion of youth voice in driving our service systems,
we remain grateful for the opportunity to work with all of you in addressing these critical mental health challenges. Together we must grasp this moment of awareness and opportunity and build the networks of support our youth and families have been requesting and have needed for so long.
Thank you!
Steve
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Native American mental health | |
Project ECHO for building community capacity in Native youth mental health
Through the implementation of Project ECHO, an evidence-based guided-practice model, our virtual training program now reaches more than 700 learners and 400 organizations in California and nationwide. Leveraging everyone’s participation through an “all teach, all learn” philosophy where learners share their clinical insights alongside a multi-disciplinary team of experts, a total of 589 continuing education units have been awarded over the course of four months.
Our ECHO program is comprised of two separate learning tracks:
- General clinicians/primary care: Dedicated to building community capacity in primary care and behavioral health.
- School mental health: Tailored for providers and professionals working in school-based mental health care.
This project is funded by California Area Indian Health Service (IHS), and led in partnership with Southern Indian Health Council, Two Feathers Native American Family Services, Yurok Tribe Health and Human Services, Native American Health Center, Southern California American Indian Resource Center, and Cal Poly Humboldt.
Register and earn free CMEs and CEUs.
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Tribal projects
We are excited to announce the launch of our new tribal projects webpage.
This new page includes:
- Information about our key programs and partnerships.
- Full access to our library of past ECHO didactic recordings and materials.
- Easy access to our program’s latest events, such as our annual Native American youth mental wellness conference.
Planning for fall 2022 conference
We’re continuing our work with Two Feathers on statewide support for tribal suicide prevention. We are starting to plan for the fourth annual Native youth mental health and wellness conference for fall 2022. Check back on our new tribal projects webpage for details.
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Media and Mental Health Initiative | |
Youth co-designed curriculum and new social media comparison guide now available
Developed to spark fun and informative youth-led conversations about social media in as little as 30 minutes to an hour, our new #GoodforMEdia curriculum facilitates peer-to-peer discussions about the positive and negative aspects of social media and engages participants in activities that build knowledge and skills to increase their healthy engagement. For more details or to set up a workshop, please contact info@goodformedia.org.
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CineWell, fostering mental health dialogue through film
As part of our initiative’s youth-led projects, CineWell was created with the goal of creating space for young people to discuss and evaluate movies focused on authenticity, and accuracy and portrayal of mental health themes. Our CineWell youth critic council meets year-round to curate film suggestion lists, evaluate movies using our review template, and discuss films exploring themes around mental health and wellbeing.
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Collaborations and workshops for media professionals
Our Media and Mental Health Initiative provides in-depth training and consultation on best practices for reporting and portraying mental health and suicide in the media. Through partnerships and collaborations, we continue to engage diverse stakeholders in driving greater public education about mental health and suicide in order to improve the impact of media on mental health.
Recent workshops presented by our team include a featured plenary and workshop at the American Association of Suicidology 55th Annual Conference and a workshop at the Association of Health Care Journalists Annual Health Journalism Conference.
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During that meeting I met many past youth advisors, whose work inspires me everyday, and current Youth Development Manager Ana Lilia Soto. I realized then the importance of providing integrated health services for the larger youth community. However, there was one thing that kept me from pursuing this role: I was not yet the minimum age of 16 during the signup process. I gathered up the courage to ask Ana if I could apply despite my age. Thankfully I filled out the application in time, and was accepted into the Palo Alto Youth Advisory Group. My experience with allcove has truly been eye opening for me, it is quite literally the most important thing I’ve ever been part of. The mission of creating, for youth by us youth, the support system that not only targets mild moderate needs, but also serves as an integrated healthcare center all in one spot. Since the beginning, I’ve been grateful and surprised by the YAG’s important role in allcove, and how much opportunity I’ve been encouraged to pursue. Sadly, my short tenure at Palo Alto YAG will be coming to an end as my new journey in college begins. With this new journey, I will remember back to the experience and value of allcove in my past and continue my support for this wonderful team in forms such as the statewide YAG committee. I’m very excited for new members who chose to take on such unique roles in this community. I can’t wait to hear about the future of YAG.
I wanna thank everyone reading this newsletter as well as all our allcove staff, the current Youth Development Manager Ana Lilia Soto and the previous Youth Outreach Specialist Grace Talice Lee for helping me in receiving this award and becoming into who I am today.
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allcove program development
The year 2022 started with feverish activity for the Central allcove Team. In partnership with the California Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission, the Central allcove Team continues to provide technical assistance to the lead agencies and coalitions involved in the allcove programs across the state including:
- The County of Santa Clara Behavioral Health Services Department managing the allcove Palo Alto center;
- Peninsula Health Care District developing the allcove San Mateo center;
- Beach Cities Health Care District developing the allcove Beach Cities center;
- The University of California at Irvine and the Wellness and Prevention Center developing the allcove Irvine and allcove San Juan Capistrano centers;
- The County of Sacramento Department of Health Services developing the allcove Sacramento center;
- The Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics and the Wellness Center Advisory Board developing the allcove Santa Barbara center.
These organizations and their partners are leading the incredible allcove establishment work and building the network of allcove centers across the state.
To support this work, in January the Central allcove Team launched the Learning Community as a forum for networking, knowledge sharing, collaboration, and training and education; developed a common evaluation framework, is continuing to work on the development of the common data collection system, the datacove.
The Central allcove Team is also participating in other allcove-related initiatives such as a Commission-led working group that will scope financial sustainability, both immediate and long-term, so allcove centers can continue to offer free or low costs services to young people regardless of insurance status.
With our international partners, the Central allcove Team is working with Foundry, Canada, on scoping clinical models of care, further refining respective minimum data sets and developing shared training resources; with Orygen Global, Australia, to support the development of the integrated youth mental health models world-wide and headspace, Australia, to share information on youth peer and supported education and employment models.
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The ACCESS (Anti-Racist, Culturally-Minded Community Education, Support, and Services) Project, conceptualized and pioneered by Youth Advisory Group members Samskruthi M. and Shravanti S., combines data collection from surveys and focus groups, along with training focused on mental health equity, data analysis, and principles and policy development, to lead the charge in anti-racist policy creation and implementation in allcove centers nationwide. Through close collaboration with youth and staff, survey questions were developed for youth and parent/guardians eliciting responses on help-seeking behavior and barriers to access, including the mental health effects of racism, cultural stigma, and marginalization across different cultural contexts.
As a result of outreach to 100+ youth-serving organizations, 396 respondents with varying backgrounds in race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and religion completed the survey, and a total of five focus groups served to highlight the lived experiences of youth from diverse backgrounds. Currently in its second phase, ACCESS is bringing together interested youth from four Youth Advisory Groups to participate in a series of workshops aimed at cultivating anti-racist principles and inclusive programs and policies within all allcove centers
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Central allcove Team Youth Advisory Group | |
The Central allcove Youth Advisory Group (CaTY) is well underway in completing its first year of providing youth insight into allcove direction and growth, ensuring that youth feedback is at the center of implementation, and has been involved in both allcove model training and Learning Community development.
The inaugural 16-member diverse cohort has been instrumental in the continued development and understanding of allcove for community partners. Youth advisors collaborated with the Central allcove Team in providing trainings for our partners in allcove history, core components, model integrity, and intentional youth engagement. They shared the allcove youth principles and the myriad of ways youth feedback gets incorporated into allcove development, implementation and service delivery.
Six members make up the evaluation squad that has been meeting with our evaluation partner, the Indigo Project, since September 2021 and have provided insight into tools, focus groups processes and questions that will be part of the statewide allcove evaluation.
This month, the Central allcove Team Youth Advisory Group will start recruitment for its second cohort. Please contact Ana Lilia Soto at analilia@stanford.edu for more information.
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allcove in the media
Our allcove program development continues to capture the attention of media, highlighting the youth voice and what makes the allcove model unique. Below is some of the recent coverage:
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Recognition for allcove program
On May 4, the allcove program was recognized at the 11th Annual Behavioral Health Community Heroes Awards by the County of Santa Clara Behavioral Health Board.
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2022 Stanford Community Partnership Award
The allcove integrated youth mental health and suicide prevention programs were one of three community partnerships recognized by Stanford’s Office of Community Engagement. The multi-dimensional collaboration celebrated the partnership between our Center and the Santa Clara County behavioral health team in school mental health, allcove development, youth suicide prevention and early psychosis consultation over the past several years.
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Christy Matta - New team member
We welcome Christy as the new clinical services and training manager at the Stanford Center for Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing, where she administers, oversees and develops the clinical program of the allcove model. Christy has over 20 years of experience in community mental health developing, implementing and providing clinical direction for innovative programming for youth and adults at the local level in regions of the U.S. and Canada.
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Stanford Redwood City Sequoia School Mental Health Collaborative
We’ve launched a new webpage for the Stanford Redwood City Sequoia School Mental Health Collaborative that outlines the initiative’s history and multi-year trajectory of building district capacity in Redwood City School District and Sequoia Union High School District to support student and staff mental health needs. The initiative was recently featured in a Stanford News article highlighting Stanford’s Center for Youth and Wellbeing as a key thought partner in supporting the districts’ efforts to better understand and address the critical mental health needs of Redwood City students and their families.
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Two Southern San Mateo County youth advisors, Yvette and Melissa, shared their mental health advocacy efforts and ideas with a member of the European Parliament, Alexandra Geese, in May 2022 in San Francisco. |
Southern San Mateo County Youth Advisory Group
Southern San Mateo County’s Youth Advisory Group is working on a few youth mental health initiatives, including the re-launch of CineWell, a youth-led group that aims to foster dialogue through film and media, as well as engaging in trainings and workshops focused on mental health equity, advocacy, storytelling and more. The group has also developed and is distributing a regional survey to assess youth mental health needs, as well as the potential for developing an allcove center in the area (Redwood City, East Palo Alto, San Carlos, and surrounding cities). We would love to hear from as many youth and community members as possible.
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PEPPNET
Psychosis-Risk and Early Psychosis Program Network
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Fourth national conference on advancing early psychosis care in the United States: Harnessing resiliency in a changing world
Drawing from current research and evidence-based practices, The Fourth National Conference on Advancing Early Psychosis Care in the United States: Harnessing Resiliency in a Changing World was held on March 10-11, 2022. In partnership with the Stanford Center for Continuing Medical Education, Psychosis-Risk and Early Psychosis Program Network (PEPPNET), the Mental Health Technology Transfer Center (MHTTC) Network, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the National Training and Technical Assistance Center (NTTAC) and the NASMHPD Research Institute, Inc. (NRI), this virtual event was well attended with over 600 registrants.
Session themes included financing, fidelity, and workforce development; the voice of lived experience and peer specialists; and diversity, equity and inclusion. Outstanding keynote presentations were given by Elyn Saks, Patt Deegan, Monica Williams,and Daniel Freeman.
PEPPNET extends gratitude to our partners, conference sponsors, planning committee, session moderators, and presenters. We look forward to beginning the planning for early psychosis care conference 2023.
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StrengthIn.Youth project - Community Initiated Care | |
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In collaboration with Well Being Trust, the Stanford Center for Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing has kicked off a new project to develop a curriculum for young people to talk with other young people when supporting each other in conversations that happen outside of the traditional mental health support system. The approach is being led by Well Being Trust in their efforts to launch a nation-wide campaign around Community Initiated Care.
Our team will support the project by ensuring youth voice and needs are embedded in the curriculum design phase, in collaboration with key youth partners and youth curriculum experts around the nation. The StrengthIn.Youth project aspires to bring nuanced, compassionate and youth-centered strategies for young people to support their peers in conversation, using easy to use tools that support healthy, supportive and safe interactions.
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