Transforming Adolescent Mental Health Care

50% of all lifetime mental illness begins by age 14, and 75% by age 24. — National Alliance on Mental Illness

A recent CDC study showed a surge of anxiety and substance abuse among 5,412 survey respondents, with more than 40 percent saying they experienced a mental or behavioral health condition connected to the pandemic. Even more worrisome is the fact that 1 in 4 young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 surveyed said they had considered suicide in the past month because of the pandemic.

For adolescents, feelings of fear, anxiety, anger, sadness and grief are magnified by the loss of contact with school and friends and compounded by a lack of access to their usual support systems during the pandemic. For underserved youth, barriers to care are even greater now than before the pandemic. There is an urgent need to develop best practices aimed at improving mental health support for adolescents.

Mills-Peninsula is partnering with leaders from the San Mateo County Office of Education and Stanford’s Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry to ensure that adolescents have access to critical mental health resources and support — from prevention and early intervention to inpatient and outpatient care, including:

• Supporting school leaders with student mental health screenings, clinical services, and parent education.
• Improving the patient experience through expanded training and programs, enhanced admissions, discharge and bridge care, and reimagined inpatient and outpatient environments.
• Training the next generation of leaders by offering mental health trainees and professionals clinical educational rotations in Mills- Peninsula’s mental health unit.