How can we better address California’s youth mental health crisis?
By giving young people the means to solve it themselves.
Gonzales (population 8,600) in Monterey County does just that. Since early 2020, middle and high school students — members of the Gonzales Youth Council, a shadow city council — have been developing a mental health strategy for their community with such potential that a study about it was recently published in a peer-reviewed journal. reading. .
It’s no surprise that this happened in Gonzales, a self-governing wonderland in the Salinas Valley with a working-class population that’s 90 percent Latino and a third under 18. Over the past generation, the city has prioritized public participation and youth empowerment. in community problem solving – a strategy dubbed “The Gonzales Way”. In the process, Gonzales made dramatic strides in everything from economic development to energy independence, and won national awards for community health programs.
The Gonzales Youth Council – a student-selected group of sixth through 12th graders – has real power, which it has used to write local underage drinking laws, help police-community relations efforts and assist with hiring at local schools.
In the fall of 2019, the Commissioners of the Youth Council decided to focus their energies on mental health. When the pandemic hit, they accelerated their plans.
The council wanted to start with an extensive online survey of young people in Gonzales. To do this, they sought advice from CoLab, a collaboration between the city and area colleges to develop solutions to community problems. At a CoLab networking event, board commissioners met with Monterey Bay California State psychology professor Jennifer Lovell, who partnered with the board.
As part of this partnership, university researchers helped the young leaders design the survey, collect anonymous responses, and analyze the quantitative and qualitative data. The Youth Council had the final say on the content of the survey and owned all the data.
The council conducted its first mental health survey in late spring 2020, focusing on the question: “How are young people doing during the COVID-19 crisis?” The survey included 52 questions (multiple-choice, assessment-based, and open-response) on topics ranging from loneliness and screen time to school adjustment.
The results revealed considerable mental stress in the Gonzales children. It wasn’t just that two-thirds said they were behind academically as they battled school closures and unreliable online lessons. Some 60% of middle and high school students with younger siblings surveyed said they had to help their siblings with their homework online. And more than half of high school-aged respondents gave answers that indicated they had anxiety, depression, or both. The Gonzales youth also reported that they needed more information on how to deal with these and other mental health issues.
The Youth Council quickly developed plans to provide this information and assistance. The council released its own mental health checkups via Instagram. The council also shared helplines, inspirational messages, coping tips and self-care reminders with students, and sought training for young people on how to respond when their peers have concerns. mental health problems.
In the fall of 2020, the Youth Council met with school, city, and county officials to advocate for more resources to help Gonzales’ children deal with their mental health issues. As a result, these local governments have decided to reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness and make it easier for students to report mental health issues.
The meetings also produced a new financial commitment. In January 2021, the city and school district agreed to share the cost of hiring a licensed clinical social worker to support student mental health.
People pay attention to Gonzales’ work as an example of what scholars call youth-led participatory action research. Three Youth Council commissioners worked with Lovell’s team to write the peer-reviewed study in the National Association of School Psychologists’ quarterly journal, School Psychology Review.
But the Youth Council isn’t done with that job or satisfied with Gonzales’ mental health. Earlier this year, young people conducted a follow-up survey to test the impact of new mental health resources and asked students what else they needed.
The good news: The 2022 survey found decreases in rates of mental stress, anxiety and depression reported in 2020. But students reported continued difficulties balancing the burden of homework, family and work. managing their own health, and said they wanted better access to mental health services. .
“We’ve made some progress, there’s more talk about mental health in school, but we need to keep talking about reducing the stigma of mental health,” Youth Council Commissioner Sherlyn told me. Flores-Magadan, a senior from Gonzales High. . “And we need to provide more information to parents – it’s one of the keys to helping our teenagers.”
At Gonzales, we are also talking about new projects between peers, especially around tutoring. The logic is simple: who better to help children than the children themselves?
Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square.
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