Our Mission
Connect youth, ages 12-25, and their families to mental health supports before the crisis. Mobilize community stakeholders, service providers, schools, and caregivers to establish priorities and set goals, in order to create a coordinated and comprehensive system of care focused on early intervention, prevention and education. [view our committees]
The Community Issue
Early intervention resources are limited and there are many barriers to access regardless of ability to pay for services. There are significant gaps and a lack of coordination in youth mental health services and as a result, many youth and families are not able to access resources when they are struggling which often leads to unnecessary crisis. Parents and youth often isolate because of the shame and stigma associated with mental health. Parents from all socioeconomic levels deserve to have an environment where they can be open and honest about their child’s struggles.
The Santa Barbara community needs more comprehensive youth mental health services which include access to psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists. With programs that do exist, there are often waiting lists and we have youth and families that are not able to get support when they need it. There are very few programs giving parents the tools they need to support their youth struggling with mental health or addiction issues.
We have youth that are sent out of the county and state to receive services through wilderness programs, residential treatment, and therapeutic boarding schools. We have families driving out of the county in order to find adequate psychiatric support. These are costly alternatives for families and they add many more stressors with potentially negative impacts. A common theme for students in recovery is loneliness when they transition home from programs. Schools, providers, parents, and youth need to understand the pitfalls and successes that accompany the process of integrating back into their families and communities.
Our resource directories and support lines are fragmented and do not serve everyone. Conversations with multiple providers have identified a lack of coordination and follow up when referring families for services. We need to collect data and understand the barriers to access.
Strategic Focus
The YouthWell Coalition strives to improve outcomes and affect systemic change, improve communication and increase transparency amongst stakeholders. The Coalition serves as an autonomous body that addresses the urgent need for ongoing, coordinated youth mental health care so that families can access and receive services. The Coalition’s focus is to stay educated on the issues, learn from other communities, and serve as a communication hub by continuously convening stakeholders, gaining consensus on priorities, and using evaluation tools to improve collaborative efforts related to youth mental health.
The YouthWell Coalition is working to develop an effective community based mental health strategic plan for youth overall wellbeing in South Santa Barbara County. The plan serves as a guide and includes the initiatives and goals for each committee. Each initiative requires further development by the YouthWell Coalition Committees and key community stakeholders, including the gathering of baseline information, establishment of targets, and identification of funding needs. The plan incorporates our community’s teen suicide prevention efforts to move away from crisis, and includes education, prevention and intervention tactics that comprehensively provide a safety net for youth, ages 12-25. Making solid connections through warm handoffs for youth and parents, despite the stressors of facing mental health, will increase the quality of life for families and reduce the stressors.
Guiding Values
Integrity: We will be transparent and honest in our work together as a collaborative.
Collaboration: We believe that mental health is a community issue and we value the partnership and commitment from parents, students, schools, county, service providers, faith-based organizations, law enforcement, funders, and community to work together towards long-term solutions. We are committed to a shared vision and will take a leadership role in expanding partnerships, and acknowledge ownership of all the outcomes. We will work to build trust amongst agencies and encourage cooperation.
Equity: We believe all youth should have access to high quality, community-based, integrated mental health services regardless of ability to pay. We are committed to implementing strategies that are inclusive of all youth and aspire to alleviate any barriers that prevent access to support services in order to ensure the quality of, access to, and cultural competence of services. We will engage youth and parents to gain a better understanding and wider diversity lens of the issue.
View our Committees & Community Partners >>
Goals • History • Accomplishments
The YouthWell Coalition formed in June 2016 with key community stakeholders coming together to start the discussion and address the mental health gaps in services for students and their families in Southern Santa Barbara County.
2018-2019 • PHASE 3 • GOALS
MISSION: Connect youth, ages 12-25, and their families to mental health supports before the crisis. Mobilize community stakeholders, service providers, schools, and caregivers to establish priorities and set goals, in order to create a coordinated and comprehensive system of care focused on early intervention, prevention and education.
- Steering Committee will continue to provide oversight of the YouthWell initiatives & explore funding support.
- Design and implement a Survey for existing committees in order to measure our impact and individual agency commitment and perceived value.
- Headspace Committee will be established.
- Work with Stanford and Santa Clara County to evaluate local viability of an integrated healthcare space for youth in Santa Barbara modeled after the Headspace and Foundry models.
- Determine funding needs for implementation, planning and start-up team.
- Youth Services Committee will work in collaboration with the schools and within the community.
- Partner with Mental Wellness Center to utilize and colocate services and activities for youth and parents in the YouthInteractive building.
- Organize a service providers retreat and training made up of staff from each agency and school deans/counselors that will be working on campuses for 2018-19.
- The Youth Resource & Referral Flyer will be updated in English and Spanish.
- Create Resource and Referral Directory to be utilized by schools and orgs to connect youth with services.
- Multi-agency project to collect data on the referral process when youth are referred elsewhere.
- Collaborate on Youth Wellness Connection Council & Club high school campus campaigns...
- SEPT: You Matter & Suicide Awareness
- OCT: Be An Upstander, Bullying Prevention & support CADA’s Red Ribbon Week
- NOV: Gratitude & Know the Signs
- DEC: Be The Change
- JAN: Stress Less & Our Words Matter
- FEB: Healthy Relationships
- MAR: Stand Against Stigma & Zero Discrimination *unplug day
- APRIL: Embrace Your Voice, Sexual Assault awareness
- MAY: Self Care & Mental Health Matters, Know the Signs, screen-free
- Explore opportunities for shared transportation for CHS, DP & SM Students to afterschool programs.
- Explore opportunities for shared office space in YI downtown building for parent & youth support groups.
- Outreach & Education Committee will develop a community awareness campaign and begin to implement educational workshops in the fall.
- Explore funding opportunities to design a community campaign focused on hope, resilience, know the signs, it’s ok to ask for help, and self-care/mindfulness (English & Spanish).
- Workshop & Training Themes to explore:
- Sensitivity Training with panels & speakers focused on reducing stigma & identifying unconscious bias… gender identity, mental health, physically/mentally disabled, cultural bias
- Upstander intervention training for youth and adults focused on how to influence the campus climate. Understanding the bystander effect and learning how to report or step-in.
- Mental Health Tools Workshop on integrating self-care, mindfulness, balance, and discussing youth issues: dealing with stress, coping with perfectionism, improving parent-child communication, addressing signs of suicide, when & how to ask for help and access resources.
- Negative & positive effects of technology & social media on youth
- Emotional resilience training for parents and youth focused on hope and strengthening family resilience by building connection, confidence and coping skills.
- College Readiness Panel: have students come back after 1st year to share realities of college, what they wish they had done differently in high school.
- If funding is received, FSA, MWC & YouthWell will provide monthly Mental Health First Aid trainings to school staff, parents, and community members beginning in Oct 2018.
- Partner with Impact Hub to host (Aug & Oct 2018): 17 Again: A Community Conversation About Teen Mental Health Today
2017-2018 • PHASE 2 • The YouthWell Coalition saw the need to create smaller working committees and develop a leadership structure in order to move beyond discussion. Phase 2 with the support of the Cottage Health Grant, provided an opportunity to establish leadership structure, committees, and develop shared responsibility for the success of the Coalition’s work. Initiatives were outlined, and commitments were established from key stakeholders.
It was agreed that the Mental Wellness Center act as the Coalition “fiscal agent”.
For the past two years, YouthWell has worked to support the youth mental health partners in the community for the benefit of youth,12-25, and their families. As relationships coalesce, the YouthWell partners have benefitted most from being able to optimize their work both on and off campus and leverage their youth services through stronger collaborations.
We continue to focus on improving connections between stakeholders in order to create systemic change on prevention and early intervention efforts. In 2018, we were able to formalize several committees to begin to address our initiatives. We currently have a Steering committee (7 members), Youth Services committee (30 members), and Outreach and Education committee (22 members) that have been meeting regularly to move this work forward. We have 59+ committed stakeholders.
In addition to improving communication, identifying gaps in services, and working on more effective relationships with the schools, we have also done the following...
- In July 2017, the Mental Wellness Center and Rachael Steidl worked on a grant application for Cottage Health. A Behavioral Health Initiative Grant was awarded (Oct 2017-Dec 2018). The amount awarded covered the costs to convene leadership committees and work with these committees to build a 3-year strategic plan. (Visit website to view committee members). Committee members signed YouthWell Coalition letters of commitment.
- Youth Services Committee began meeting in the Spring of 2017 to discuss how to work more collaboratively together both on and off campus to better leverage resources for students.
PARTICIPANTS: AHA!, CADA, CALM, CCEC, CUSD, Carpinteria Children's Project, Casa Pacifica, FSA, Hospice, Just Communities, Mental Wellness Center, Mission Harbor Behavioral Health, Pacific Pride, Sanctuary Centers, Sb Neighborhood Clinics, SBPAL, SBRN, Youth Interactive, What Is Love, UCSB/Gevirtz - The Steering Committee began meeting in December 2017 in order to provide oversight.
PARTICIPANTS: Rachael Steidl, Chair, Annmarie Cameron/MWC, Geoff Green/SBCC Foundation, Frann Wageneck/SBUSD, Susan Salcido/SBCEO, Megan Riker-Rheinschild/DA Office, Katy Bazylewicz/Cottage Population Health - The Outreach & Education Committee began meeting in April 2018.
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- Youth Services Committee began meeting in the Spring of 2017 to discuss how to work more collaboratively together both on and off campus to better leverage resources for students.
- In January 2018, the Youth Service Providers Committee designed, printed, and distributed a Youth Mental Health & Resource Flyer in English and in Spanish for the Santa Barbara, Goleta, and Carpinteria junior high and high schools to more easily connect students and parents to mental health resources.
- - In January 2018, the YouthMentalWellness.org website was created to create a way to educate the community on the work being done by the Coalition.
- - In February 2018, support provided to San Marcos High School after chat room incident. School-based service providers convened to work together with school staff on best way to do campus outreach.
- - In March 2018, the School-Based Service providers committee supported FSA & CADA on the SBUSD RFP. The funding ensured ongoing coalition committee meetings through December 2018 and provided support to host a workshop for youth service providers.
- - In April 2018, Cottage Hospital and the YouthWell Coalition worked together to host Dr. Steve Adelsheim.
- Steve spoke at Cottage Grand Rounds; A New Approach to Coordinated Mental Health Services for our Youth and the panel included Rachael Steidl, Annmarie Cameron, Zev Nathan, and Susan Salcido.
- During his visit, a smaller committee met to discuss the Headspace and Foundry model in more depth.
- SB Neighborhood Clinics provided a tour and discussion.
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- In May 2018, 7 representatives from SB attended the Adolescent Mental Wellness Conference including Rachael Steidl, Annmarie Cameron, Frann Wageneck, Alana Walzak, Ama Atideu, Georgina Dahill, and Christy Stillwell. The conference focused on Overcoming Cultural Barriers to Access.
- - In May 2018, meeting with Orcutt school district to share work being done in Santa Barbara.
- - In May, 2018, Rachael joined the SBUSD Task Force School Climate and Safety.
- - In June 2018, a non-binding letter was submitted to Dr. Steve Adelsheim requesting implementation support to pilot an integrated mental health care space for Santa Barbara youth (Headspace model).
- - In August 2018, YouthWell YouthWell partnered with the Impact Hub to host a Parent Workshop: 17 Again, A community conversation about teen mental health today with 160 in attendance. A mental wellness night providing parents and community with tools and resources to support youth. Discover what it is like to be in high school today, and let’s come together as a community to learn more about an issue that affects everyone. This interactive night will feature a panel of experienced community professionals in the mental health sector. You will leave this event with tangible tools on how to take care of yourself, how to talk to someone who is struggling, what relevant warning signs to look out for, and what resources are offered in Santa Barbara.
- - In September 2018, YouthWell hosted a Youth Service Providers Workshop with 78 providers attending from various organizations and schools throughout Santa Barbara, Goleta, and Carpinteria. The goal was to build a connection between Deans, Counselors, SRO’s, FSA & CADA Counselors and additional organizations providing services to the schools. Create stronger referrals and warmer handoffs for students and families with everyone having a better understanding of school mental health and crisis protocols and for schools to better understand services each organization provides both on and off campus. Attended by: AHA!, CADA, CALM, CASA PACIFICA/SAFTY, FSA, HOSPICE, JUST COMMUNITIES, MENTAL WELLNESS CENTER, PACIFIC PRIDE, SBPAL, WHAT IS LOVE, CUSD, SBUSD, CHS, CMS, DPHS, GVJHS, SBJHS, LCJHS, SBHS, SMHS, and ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STAFF
- - In September 2018, after positive feedback from the initial distribution the previous year, the Youth Mental Health & Resource Flyer was updated for the 2018-19 school year and distributed to all school districts in south Santa Barbara County in English and in Spanish to more easily connect students and parents to mental health resources.
- - In September 2018, Rachael co-hosted a freshman assembly and break out sessions at DPHS and SMHS for 400+ students at each school focused on mental health and healthy friendships.
- - In October, Rachael and Annmarie joined Dr. Steve Adelsheim from Standford and visited the Foundry model in Vancouver Canada to learn more about the benefits for youth.
- - In October, FSA, Mental Wellness Center, and YouthWell received a 3 year SAMHSA grant that will provide an opportunity for more community education allowing us to focus on prevention and early intervention. Youth Mental Health First Aid is now being offered monthly for free to parents, youth service providers, and community members.
- - In January 2019, Rachael Steidl moderated a Community Forum in Carpinteria hosted by Das Williams and HopeNet, Strengthening Community Mental Health Resiliency. Speakers included Annmarie Cameron, Von Do-Reynoso, and Kristen Escobedo.
- - In January 2019, with the support of Deckers, SAMHSA grant, FSA and the Mental Wellness Center, YouthWell hosted a Parent Workshop, Navigating the digital & gaming age with our youth with 170 in attendance.
2017 • Other Community Work being done…
In June of 2017, County of SB Dept of Behavioral Wellness, SBUSD, and SBRN put together a Community Contagion Intervention and Response Plan. With support of the Bower Foundation and other funders, they brought Dr. Robert Macy, President of Int’l Trauma Center, and his team to do an assessment and provide trauma response & psychological first aid (PFA) to school counselors, coaches, and mental health professionals.
In 2017, the Mental Wellness Center provided Mental Health First Aid training at the SB Libraries, to teachers at SBUSD, and for the Teen Coalition participants as well as YWC students and parents.
In September, 2017, [1] Several partners including SB Public Libraries, What is Love, and the Youth Wellness Connection hosted a community dialogue workshop for parents and teens around 13 Reason's Why, on Suicide, Dating Violence, Sexual Assault, and Bullying Prevention. [2] SB Response Network hosted community film screening and Q&A…“An Evening of Resources & Hope, Let’s Talk About Suicide”.
In October, 2017, Bridges to Resilience hosted their annual conference focused on Building a Trauma-Informed and Resilience-Focused Community with a focus on ACEs. Purpose Statement: Conference seeks to engage a variety of agencies and individuals who interact with children, youth and families on a daily basis; to deepen the conversations about trauma-informed care and share practical information that can guide our approaches.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
2016-2017 • PHASE 1 • The YouthWell Coalition formed in June 2016 with Rachael Steidl convening key stakeholders in the community to come together to start the discussion and address the mental health gaps in services for students and their families in Southern Santa Barbara County. Phase 1 was a one-year process that built connections and trust between stakeholders while exploring the challenging issues surrounding youth mental health in our community. We redefined “underserved” to include all youth since mental health is nondiscriminatory.
Ongoing meetings with service providers, funders, parents, school administration, Board of Supervisors representatives, and others were coordinated to gain a better understanding, increase communication and encourage more transparency.
The Coalition successfully worked together and identified gaps in services, barriers to access and an understanding that there is limited access regardless of ability to pay for services. With programs that do exist, there are often waiting lists which means students and families are not able to get support. There was consensus that we need to increase training, education, and outreach, expand services and make them accessible to all students struggling with mental health issues.
The Coalition met 6 times between June 2016 and June 2017 at the Santa Barbara Foundation.
- The Mental Wellness Center provided lunches for the meetings in year one.
- Approximately 50 individuals participated in the YouthWell Coalition meetings.
Organizations included the Santa Barbara & Carpinteria Unified School Districts, law enforcement, SBCC, Westmont, UCSB, multiple agencies, Santa Barbara County Department of Behavioral Wellness, Cottage Hospital, SB Neighborhood Clinics, Therapeutic Educational Consultant, and parents.
In August, 2016, Rachael Steidl and Annmarie Cameron attended the Adolescent Mental Wellness Conference hosted by Stanford to learn more about how Palo Alto and other communities have been addressing similar issues.
In June, 2017, the Santa Barbara Foundation provided funding for the Coalition to host Denise Gunn, principal at Gunn School and Mary Gloner, executive director of Project Safety Net Coalition to speak about how they implemented change in the Palo Alto school district. They have been changing the culture around mental health through curriculum, campus clubs, high school paper, campus wellness clinics, and in the community. Approximately 56 attended including funders, school district staff, teachers, school resource officers, PTSA, CBO’s, SB County Behavioral Wellness, and Cottage Health.
In Dec, 2017, Dr. Zev Nathan worked with the YouthWell Coalition and the Mental Wellness Center and invited Dr. Steven Adelsheim, Director, Stanford Center for Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing to speak about the headspace model.
Positive changes started happening as connections were made and agencies found ways to collaborate…
- The Mental Wellness Center (MWC) launched SPOT parent support groups to begin giving parents a place to connect and learn tools to better support their teens. SBPal stepped in as a partner by providing the Teen Center for meetings so that parents had a neutral meeting space.
- The MWC and Rachael Steidl partnered on a youth project aimed at reducing stigma on campuses. They launched the Youth Wellness Connection Club at SMHS in 2016 modeled after the SBCC Wellness Connection founded by Roxane Pate. The YWC expanded to SBHS, DPHS, CHS and Alta Vista Middle College in 2017. The Youth Wellness Connection Council launched as a program of the MWC in 2017 to provide more in-depth training and education to better prepare students to lead their campus clubs.
Strategic Plan
This Strategic Plan is a working draft and a result of the work that was done the past two years, 2016-2018, during Phase 1 and 2 and has involved input from many of the key stakeholders committed to supporting youth mental wellness. It will be revised and adapted by the Coalition Committees. This is an aggressive 3-year strategic plan designed to make an impact on youth mental health. It will require a strong coordination of efforts amongst each committee and its members.
YouthWell will address each initiative with these questions... Does the strategy mesh with existing ones in the community? Does the strategy reflect goals and objectives of the coalition? Do the initiatives represent a best or promising practice? Is the strategy culturally appropriate? What barriers may stand in the way of carrying out this strategy? Is the strategy cost-effective? How will success be measured and evaluated?
INITIATIVES...
[1] How do we effectively connect families to mental health support services?
- Map and evaluate our existing youth programs, parent support, and referral process.
- Determine where we need to expand, collaborate and educate.
- Develop a better understanding of what is available to both MediCal, low income and private pay youth and their families. Research models that allow both MediCal and private pay insurance.
- Develop a protocol for resource and referral that provides a warm-handoff and ensures access to care.
- Identify 1 crisis & compassion phone line, 1 text line, and 1 resource directory.
Expand SAFTY to be both a crisis and compassion hotline/warmline. - Create a response system that fosters communication and cooperation across agencies.
- Identify one agency to manage an online universal database (online service directory) of resources related to Youth Mental Health to include both private sector and public agency service providers.
- Create a Youth Resource & Referral list that includes all school-based agencies and the services they provide making it easier for counselors and parents to navigate rather than multi-flyers. Update annually.
- Identify 1 crisis & compassion phone line, 1 text line, and 1 resource directory.
- Improve coordination of data collection and shared evaluation.
- Create a multi agency project to collect data on the referral process when youth are referred elsewhere.
- Explore options around data collection and referrals in order to develop systems that allow for warm handoffs which create an accountability process through the transfer of service provider responsibility. Provide mental health data and information to other community groups with overlapping goals.
[2] How do we increase services, improve coordination of providers, and ensure cultural competency?
- Funding - There is a need for multi-year funding so that the Coalition and partnering organizations can focus on implementing initiatives and creating sustainability. Research and act on funding opportunities, including community donations, grants and federal funding. The coalition supports the activities of many service providers so we anticipate cost sharing through collaborative projects inspired by it.
- Talk to parents and youth and find out what is not working and why. Look for improved outcomes by identifying the gaps and barriers, expanding capacity of accessible services, and encouraging systemic changes through community collaboration and leveraging relationships.
- Explore long term solutions to provide accessible support to students both on and off campus that address prevention, intervention, crisis response, treatment & aftercare.
- Provide youth access to high quality resources that are able to meet their unique mental health needs.
- Increase communication and coordination between service providers, schools, and families to leverage resources, and provide greater quality of support.
- Work with school districts to strengthen support programs within the schools. We need to assist the counselors who are working directly with the students in making the necessary community connections.
- Support launch of a “multi-agency” parent support groups and provide parent education. When parents set boundaries and shift their behaviors, the entire family begins to change.
- Expand Services
- Work with Stanford and Santa Clara County to evaluate local viability of an integrated health care space for youth in Santa Barbara modeled after the Headspace/Foundry models. This model serves youth, 12-25, experiencing mild to moderate mental health issues, while offering primary care, substance abuse early intervention and support for education and employment. https://med.stanford.edu/psychiatry/special-initiatives/headspace.html
- Support launch of a “multi-agency” teen resilience group for students in aftercare/transition.
- Explore shared transportation options amongst providers to transport students after school to programs.
[3] How do we reduce stigma and shame and promote institutional change in our community so that families feel comfortable asking for help?
- Increase awareness and understanding around mental health. Inspire a community culture change in order to reduce the stigma and shame and create a safe environment that allows students and parents to ask for help.
- Provide ongoing education and trainings for service providers, parents, and teachers to create more understanding of the issues as well as to provide tools so individuals are better equipped.
- Provide professional development trainings for therapists and teachers, and education for parents, caregivers, community and students.
- Host speakers and panels. Consider an annual 1 day Student Mental Wellness Community Connection [similar format to PFE or Parent University in Chicago].
- Many agencies provide internal training for staff that could benefit other agencies, parents and school counselors if they were made available. Assess existing opportunities for training and education utilizing our local agencies and coordinate an annual calendar. Collaborate with CADA, DVS, NAMI, MWC, Pacific Pride, Just Communities, Hospice, Rape Crisis Center, SBRN, etc. to leverage our local resources and reduce costs (versus using as many outside consultants).
- Provide professional development trainings for therapists and teachers, and education for parents, caregivers, community and students.
- Public Education Campaign: Coordinate a campaign with a unified message that fosters awareness and educates on the signs of emotional distress focused on hope, resilience, know the signs, It’s ok to ask for help, & self-care. (ie: look for additional opportunities like back to school night to reach parents directly.) Partner with Youth Wellness Connection on high school campuses focused on positive messaging campaigns for students.
- The schools currently have many organizations providing school-based services which can include curriculum in the health classes, support services, and campus outreach clubs. The challenge for the agencies is establishing consistency amongst schools and even in the classrooms as to what is being provided and the time it takes to coordinate. The challenge for the schools is that their primary focus needs to be academics and coordinating social-emotional support on campus can be time consuming and challenging.
- The Youth Service Providers Committee will work on setting goals for leveraging partnerships and working more effectively on the campuses and in alignment with the school district’s goals.
- Communication with staff, educational email blasts through Parent Square, coordinated surveys of students and parents for evidenced based research.
- Work in partnership with school districts on providing curriculum in health classes and/or making it available to teachers.
- Explore options with schools for “special topic seminars” during seminar period.
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