11-Feb-2026 news

Delays in CA youth mental health program threaten gains in schools

The Amitim for Youth team facilitates social integration in the community with an outreach approach that involves encounters with end-users (adolescents and their parents) in the community and their homes. YEESI engages users aged 13–29 in community-based volunteer activities where they can also serve as members of the organization at annual board meetings. These adolescents run campaigns in the media and interview people on their opinions about mental health (see Table 1, Item 7). TAY is offered as part of the LOFT (Leap of Faith Together) mental health service and is a charity that was established in 1953, which is funded by the Province of Ontario and donations (see Table 1, Item 6).

RESOURCES

youth behavioral health initiatives

Children’s Nebraska is equipping primary care providers to identify mental illness to allow early intervention — and better outcomes. Children’s hospitals are working together to tackle the behavioral health crisis in the communities they serve. To provide you with the best experience, our websites uses features that are not supported by your current browser. By empowering these voices, we can create more inclusive, effective, and sustainable approaches to mental health and well-being. This innovative commission represents a step forward in the broader mental health landscape, emphasizing the importance of lived experience in shaping mental health policy and practice. The commission aims to centre lived experience in mental health research, empowering individuals who have directly faced mental health challenges to lead and inform research efforts.

Focus Areas

youth behavioral health initiatives

Parents and caregivers can significantly enhance youth mental health initiatives through active involvement and support. Youth mental health initiatives enhance social skills and peer relationships through structured activities and support systems. Collaborations with schools and families enhance outreach and awareness, ensuring that mental health resources reach those in need. They facilitate access to mental health services, fostering safe spaces for young people to express their challenges. Research shows that such programs can reduce stigma and improve academic performance, making mental health resources accessible to all students.

youth behavioral health initiatives

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 https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2023/call-national-strategy-strengthen-youth-behavioral-health-workforce 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).

Program increases early intervention efforts by equipping providers to identify and treat mental health conditions. After developing an in-house certification program, behavioral health staff turnover fell by half, patient restraints decreased by 44%, and employee engagement skyrocketed. Children’s hospitals continue to experience shortages across pediatric care fields with an outsized impact on mental and behavioral health specialties. The Children’s Hospital Association and Children’s Hospital Colorado invited Lucy and Hope Hartman to Capitol Hill to advocate for a mental health care system that works for kids. Amid a national crisis in child and adolescent behavioral health, children’s hospitals are rising to the challenge.

youth behavioral health initiatives

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. Importantly, the proposed mechanism of action should be a construct that can be measured feasibly in school contexts using valid measures that are widely accepted by the field. The exact nature of the mechanism will vary based on the intervention characteristics.

  • The program operates in 13 centers that provide psychosocial services for users aged 12–25.
  • These programs provide adolescents with opportunities to interact with their peers, acquire new skills, and enhance their well-being.
  • With support from CYBHI, counties throughout California are increasing services to support kids and families.
  • “Because we didn’t receive reimbursement for a single claim until 15 months after (starting program implementation) … as of March we were forced to pink slip 27 of our staff.

Additionally, these programs emphasize collaboration among stakeholders, including families, schools, and mental health professionals. Although there are few studies assessing the effectiveness of peer support in mental health services (51, 53), studies on adults have shown that peer support programs positively affect the recovery process by enhancing engagement and reducing hospitalization stays (54, 55). Some programs do not provide information about their services and do not specify the activities and community events offered. Service providers should thus include social and leisure activities in programs and take adolescents’ psychosocial needs for peer interaction and self-efficacy into consideration. In sum, the purpose of this scoping review was to find information on CBR programs that provide leisure and/or social activities for adolescents with MHC. In addition, the team provides support to users aged 16–30, training workshops for peer support, information regarding mental health, coordinates care and refers members to additional services (see Table 3, Item 9).