Youth is a time of significant biological and psychosocial changes that coincide with the peak incidence of mental health problems. Converging evidence supports a new paradigm for youth mental health that combines promotion, prevention and treatment.
Many youth have overlapping symptoms of mental health disorders, including anxiety or depression and delinquent or aggressive behaviors. Learn about how these issues impact them and how you can help.
Prevention
Young people with mental health challenges are at risk of losing their jobs, becoming homeless and even committing suicide. These risks can be mitigated through prevention strategies in schools, homes, community spaces, and elsewhere.
Research shows that there are clear windows of opportunity to prevent mental, emotional and behavioral disorders from developing into serious conditions. Preventive measures can be taken when an individual first exhibits signs of a disorder and the most effective treatments are typically administered early on.
Support efforts to improve the availability and quality of treatment for youth with mental health challenges, including reducing barriers that can keep them from accessing care. Promote transparency and accountability among technology companies to ensure they provide users with information on how their platforms may be affecting the health and well-being of adolescents. Support the development, implementation and evaluation of digital and media literacy curricula in schools. Reduce misinformation, negative stereotypes and biases by empowering trusted messengers—faith leaders, educators, health care professionals, juvenile justice officials, online influencers and the media.
Early Intervention
A key barrier to youth mental health is a lack of access to effective care. Existing healthcare models are largely reactive and adult-focused, and lack services that specifically cater to the needs of youth.
Prevention and early intervention strategies can help address these gaps in care. These are designed to identify warning signs and provide children, adolescents, and teens with support and care before a crisis occurs. This can prevent the onset of mental illness, reduce long-term morbidity and mortality risks, and improve outcomes for young people.
Community outreach and education can arm parents, teachers, friends, spiritual leaders, and mentors with the knowledge and tools to recognize early symptoms of depression and other mental health conditions. This can also increase the likelihood that these individuals will successfully refer youth into appropriate care.
Treatment
Reliable early identification of mental health and substance use problems in schools and primary care settings and effective, nondiscriminatory treatment can help prevent adolescent behavioral and emotional distress from escalating into higher risk behaviors like drug use, school failure, dropping out or involvement with the juvenile justice system.
Education and outreach to identify and respond to early warning signs in the community can arm parents, teachers, friends, spiritual leaders, and youth mentors with knowledge and skills to help their peers and direct them to supportive services for additional comprehensive assessment and treatment.
Programs should aim to address unique mental health needs of youth, including those with limited or no access to care, by addressing barriers and increasing collaboration between local stakeholders. They should also work to reduce negative stereotypes, biases and stigma in communities of color and in other vulnerable populations. Lastly, they should foster open dialogue amongst trusted messengers to increase awareness and support for youth mental health.
Recovery
Recovery is a lifelong process of restoring emotional, social and physical health. It involves the development of an inner sense of well-being, healthy work/life balance, a satisfying relationship with family and friends and a sense of achievement. It also involves regaining the ability to cope with difficult situations and emotions without turning to drugs or alcohol.
Peer support – including the sharing of experiential knowledge and skills, and social learning – is vital for people in recovery. It provides a vital sense of belonging, supportive relationships and valued roles in the community. It also helps to re-build self-belief and resilience.
Existing recovery research draws on a range of theories and models including ecological systems theory (Bronfenner, Citation1979) and risk-resilience models that outline interactive personal and environmental factors, cumulative protective and promoting influences, adversity and trauma factors, and developmental trajectories. However, it predominantly focuses on adult populations and may not be relevant to youth mental health.