The Answer to our Youth Mental Health Crisis?

A policy adopted in Eugene’s 4J School District has been creating safe spaces for transgender students from kindergarten through high school. Gender-inclusive programs at the University of Oregon have marked the school as a national leader in LGBTQ acceptance.

Assertive community treatment teams working through outreach-centered programs in Maricopa County have become an industry standard for treating those with persistent and severe mental illnesses who have recently been incarcerated. They provide a long-term approach, aiming to halt a cycle of incarceration and hospitalization by focusing on underlying issues such as what caused the police interaction and incarceration.

The United States has rising childhood obesity and schools deal with kids who are picky. Through innovative school gardens and kid taste testing food, entrepreneurs across the nation are getting children to eat vegetables at school and love it.

Often social programs at schools fail because they are not implemented fully or over a long enough period. One school in Philadelphia attributes their success in decreasing violence to having a long-term principal, a stable teaching force, and formal training in anti-violence programs.

Journalist Marcella Bombardieri calls community college "one of America's largest and most important anti-poverty programs." The president of Amarillo College in Texas is testing just how far community colleges can go to fight systemic issues - day care, social workers, and emergency funds for students' daily expenses are part of his plan. Other administrators are looking on at the dramatic experiment with mixed views and takeaways.

Connecting LGTBQ+ teens with peers and adults for support can help reduce depression and the risk of suicide. Organizations like the Four Corners Rainbow Youth Center in Durango, Colorado, and the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center at Fort Lewis College provide safe spaces where youth feel welcome and supported by a network of peers and adults. The centers also act as social spaces where youth, parents, and their communities can come together.

Across New Hampshire, youth are leading the fight against substance abuse. Programs like Dover’s Youth-to-Youth, Stand Up Sachems, Youth Leadership Through Adventure, and the Making it Happen Coalition, are all youth-led, adult-supported initiatives that are empowering young adults to create and disseminate substance abuse awareness and prevention campaigns. Fundamental to each of these efforts effective communication and creating a sense of community as key to prevention.

Based out of the city of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, a live radio show is tackling the stigma around mental health care by combining their platform with those in the mental health care field. Not only does the radio show discuss psychological issues on air, but it also offers free and reduced-cost mental health services to those that serve as guests on the show.

Medical professionals throughout the United States are starting to implement mental health screenings during routine care in order to better assess those at risk of suicide. Using a combination of health records and questionnaires to flag which patients should have continued follow-ups, clinics and primary care specialists prioritization of suicide intervention is already showing significant results.

The Save the Boys Initiative provides counseling, group and family therapy, programming around mentorship and leadership, and other forms of assistance for boys who have experienced sexual abuse.