CYMHW: News

Partnerships between Stanford and community entities were recognized March 3 for their sustained work to support youth mental health, the needs of domestic violence survivors, and adaptation in the frontline communities that will be most impacted by climate change. Congratulations to all involved with the Stanford Redwood City Sequoia School Mental Health Collaborative - an award recipient this year - including the Redwood City School District, the Sequoia Union High School District, the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and their Communities, and the Center for Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing at Stanford.

In a midtown neighborhood shopping center in Palo Alto, an innovative model for prevention and early intervention for youth mental health challenges is an open door for young people. Called “allcove,” it’s one of several such centers taking shape across California, and the first of its kind in the United States.

Located in Redondo Beach, on the coastal edge of Los Angeles County, allcove Beach Cities opened Nov 1 to serve the young people, families and community of the South Bay. allcove Beach Cities' opening is the culmination of many years of collaborative partnership and work. The center will serve young people ages 12 to 25, providing a unique place for them to access support. It is designed to create meaningful, positive experiences for every young person who comes through its doors.

Beach Cities Health District held a ribbon-cutting Oct. 18 for allcove Beach Cities (spelled with a lowercase ‘a’), the first branch of a youth mental health program developed at Stanford University. The Redondo Beach facility – to open on the fourth floor of the former South Bay Hospital at the BCHD’s main campus, serves people ages 12 to 25. State Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi attended the ribbon-cutting, along with a team from Stanford’s Center for Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing, led by Dr. Seven Adelsheim, who created the program.

Tech, and especially social media, has a dark side that harms children. It’s a reality that lawmakers have yet to effectively address. Read more in this opinion piece written by Emily and Sonia, co-founders and peer leaders with #GoodforMEdia, a campaign created by young people to support healthy social media engagement.

allcove centers provide a range of services to young people, including mental health screening, short-term therapy, primary care, and addiction treatment.

Wyoming has some of the highest juvenile incarceration rates in the country and some of the highest teen suicide rates as well. Such data has a lot of Wyomingites looking for outside-the-box solutions for helping kids before they face these hurdles. Jonathan Updike grew up in Wyoming and ended up at Stanford, working on an innovative program called allcove, which gets kids designing their own intervention strategies.

A comprehensive white paper that outlines the allcove model and the manner in which it responds to the increasing needs of young people

Although stereotypes and misperceptions regarding mental health and substance use disorders are pervasive, journalists can play an influential role in educating and informing the public about these public health issues and reduce the prevalence of sensationalized inaccurate information that fuels stigma and discrimination. Join this powerful discussion to learn how to promote responsible and fair communications in our media.

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen testified about the risks of social media for kids. If you're a parent worried about your children, here are some things you can do. Vicki Harrison, program director for the Center for Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing and the GoodforMEdia project, provides comment.

This article features the allcove centers, standalone health and wellness sites for youth ages 12 to 25, often on a walk-in basis, at minimal or no cost. Although allcove is built to support a wide range of physical, emotional, and social needs, its overarching goal is to deal with mental health challenges before they develop into deeper problems. allcove is yet in its infancy, with two sites just opened in the Bay Area and five more in the pipeline around California. It’s modeled on a 15-year-old program in Australia, headspace, which has 130 such clinics. Steven Adelsheim, clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and the Center for Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing are featured in this article.

Vicki Harrison, MSW, Program Director for Stanford Psychiatry’s Center for Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing answers questions teens sent in about asking for help, offering help to friends, and navigating mental health issues in a healthy way.

Many children have lived through a great deal of hardship and loss over the past year, disproportionately so youth from marginalized or resource-scarce backgrounds. As young people struggled to acclimate to their new remote learning landscape, the news headlines have been consistently frightening and confusing for many of them, adding to an overall feeling of potential uncertainty and underlying fear for their own personal safety. Vicki Harrison and Jules Villanueva-Castaño, from the Center for Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing, discuss the return to school in this piece.