Nancy Santiago grew up in Philadelphia in what she describes as a “tough environment, a crazy situation. I went to get help and no one would help me.”
Her drug-addicted father was violent and her grandmother ran a speakeasy to support the family, and when Santiago had trouble, her evangelical relatives told her to pray.
still Her difficult upbringing She has had a career in education, philanthropy and public service, including roles in the Departments of Education and Labor under President Barack Obama and more recently in the Office of U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy under President Joe Biden.
So Santiago began reflecting on her own experiences and thinking about youth and mental health. “I thought to myself, as a 54-year-old, what would I have liked to do when I was 16?,” she says. “How do we help kids who have parents who don’t have insurance, can’t get therapy, or don’t know how to get services? How do we create a way for these kids to get help?”
Santiago is now helping to establish a youth mental health unit. First attempt Launching in four states this fall, the program aims to address the nation’s youth mental health crisis. The innovative program recruits young volunteers to help other young people struggling with mental health issues. Once enrolled, volunteers will receive training and state-specific certification in behavioral health.
Volunteers work in schools, community organizations, and nonprofits for one year (or two, if they choose), with the goal of connecting other young people with mental health supports. Volunteers are also provided with a living allowance for their work.
The public-private partnership is supported by AmeriCorps, the federal agency for volunteer and national service, and funders including America Forward, a bipartisan initiative of the Schultz Family Foundation, Pinterest, and New Profit, a national venture philanthropy fund.
Santiago explained that the program not only serves the mental health needs of young people, but also helps increase the pipeline of young people pursuing academics and careers in fields such as social work and psychology.
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has called youth mental health “the defining public health issue of our time.”
AmeriCorps CEO Michael D. Smith said he is excited to launch the Youth Mental Health Corps 30 years after President Clinton swore in AmeriCorps’ first class in 1994. “The great thing about AmeriCorps is we’re not old-fashioned. We’re not status quo. We’re able to respond to the biggest issues of the day, and there may be no bigger issue facing young people right now than the youth mental health crisis,” Smith said.
Smith said: 2021 Surgeon General’s Advisory The Protecting Youth Mental Health report highlights such facts as one in three high school students reporting persistent feelings of hopelessness and that suicide is the second leading cause of death among 10-14 year olds.
Smith noted that despite the partisan political climate, it’s not an issue for states to join the Corps. “National service is a place where people come together across party lines,” he said. “We have a strong bipartisan tradition of service and civic engagement and supporting the work of AmeriCorps. So this isn’t about blue states or red states. It’s not leaning one way or the other.”
The Youth Mental Health Corps will launch this fall in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota and Texas. By fall 2025, it will expand to 11 states, including states with large Latino populations, such as California, New Jersey, New York and Utah. Anyone between the ages of 18 and 24 with a high school diploma is open to participation. Can apply for service The Marine Corps offers part-time and full-time opportunities.
Lack of access affects Latino and Black youth
The initiative comes amid growing attention to mental health issues in the Latino community. Lawmakers’ concerns Experts say rising suicide rates among Latinos have local leaders worried, while Latinos also lag other racial and ethnic groups in accessing mental health care. Quote More than half of Latinos ages 18 to 25 with serious mental illness may not receive treatment.
“The reality is that the crisis of black and Latino youth not receiving mental health services has been going on for decades,” said Quiara Alvarez, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Now that we’re getting more attention and talking more openly about youth mental health, in some ways we’re catching up with a crisis that’s been there all along.”
Alvarez said Latino youth experience many of the same mental stressors as other American youth, including issues related to family, friends and romantic relationships, but they also face a range of other challenges.
“For Latinos in particular, there are challenges of experiencing discrimination, experiencing a sense that the United States is closed to Latinos, experiencing negative portrayals of Latinos in the media…. Influence their values And then there’s the awareness of how people around you see you.”
Immigrant youth and children of immigrants often have to deal with an uncertain future or worry about parents at risk of deportation, and studies have shown that Latino youth living in states with anti-immigrant policies have higher rates of chronic mental illness.
Many Latinos still face stigma about seeking mental health care: “There’s a fear that others will see them as ‘weird’ or ‘insane,’ or that they won’t be seen as good parents,” Alvarez said.
Further compounding the problem she cited, Latinos who seek mental health care can encounter services that aren’t prepared in a culturally competent manner, with some reporting feeling humiliated, criticized or misunderstood during appointments with therapists.
Nelly Grosso is a college junior in Denver and part of the inaugural class of Youth Mental Health Corps. Of Argentinian descent, she has been working with Colorado Youth for a Change, which she describes as “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” especially because “so many of the barriers and stressors my students face are similar to the ones I faced in high school.”
Grosso has worked primarily with immigrant and first-generation American youth. Her high school students are close in age to her, so she felt she could connect with them culturally, musically and even through TikTok. She helps them with their schoolwork, helps them access mental health services and sometimes just listens to them “as a listening ear.”
Grosso plans to earn her bachelor’s degree and then a master’s in social work. “As a first-generation American, I feel like our voices have often been ignored, but I’ve learned how to use my experiences to show that I matter and that my experiences matter.”
As Grosso was packing up her office on the last day of school recently, she heard footsteps running down the hallway. It was the last day of the semester, and one of her students had been running around the school looking for her, trying to say goodbye. Grosso was touched, realizing just how much of an impact she had made on her.
“My experience in high school was that no one cared that I was there,” Grosso recalled. “So it’s important to me to show other students that I care about them, that I’m curious about how they’re doing. I can tell them, ‘I miss you. I’m so glad you’re here at school.’ And that’s healing for all of us.”
