Youth & Young Adults Now: Vision, Voice, and Ventures is a quarterly newsletter dedicated to promoting resources, perspectives, and organizations that support youth and young adult (YYA) advocates, advocates for YYA, and YYA-serving professionals.
Reach out to PS MHTTC Project Manager, Ingrid Severson to let us know what you think of YYA Now; Vision, Voice, and Ventures! What would you like to see more of? Who do you want to hear from? Email Ingrid at iseverson@cars-rp.org
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The Pacific Southwest MHTTC is excited to announce new team leads for our youth and young adult (YYA) programming: Oriana Ides and Evelyn Clark. Oriana and Evelyn bring a vast range of expertise in YYA behavioral health. This includes equity strategies for supporting BIPOC youth and youth-serving organizations, and peer supports, trauma-informed services and supports. Oriana and Evelyn are pleased to initiate innovative practices for YYA, peers, and the organizations in which they serve and are served. They will be focusing on culturally responsive services and anti-racist practices. Keep looking for amazing opportunities to learn from and with these two new team members! |
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Oriana Ides, MA, APCC, PPS
Training and Technical Assistance Specialist
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Evelyn Clark, CPC
Technical Assistance Specialist and Racial Equity Consultant
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MHTTC is proud to highlight youth who have been impacted by the justice system. Mental health, like many systems, is rife with systemic biases and racial disparities. This has led to an overrepresentation of BIPOC youth in the juvenile justice system. Many young people in this system have faced challenges before justice involvement, and most face even deeper challenges after entering the system. For BIPOC youth, justice involvement can create a series of experiences, determinants of physical and behavioral health, and records and documentation that can lead to multiple adverse outcomes. There is an urgent need to adopt and implement culturally responsive and anti-racist behavioral health interventions before, during, and after juvenile justice involvement.
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“My name is Muhamed Selavic. I am a certified peer counselor with lived experience involving the juvenile rehabilitation system and the department of corrections. I was recently incarcerated for 7 years, from 17 to 24. I have made it a mission and goal to use the knowledge and information I have gained to help other youth and peers learn what I have learned without having to go through what I went through to learn and use my lived experience as a valuable tool to support others.
I am currently a Co-Executive Director of GENERAL PURPOSE, Peer Support Specialist/Trainer for SPARK peer learning center, Founder of MADE MEN Peer-to-Peer Mentoring Program, and published author.”
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Made Men program at Green Hill School, Department of children, youth, and families in Washington State |
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The Pacific Southwest MHTTC is thrilled to announce two upcoming series for youth and young adult peers and the organizations and agencies that work with them. |
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Series 1: “Aging Out or Growing Together?: Flipping the Youth Services Paradigm'' is a discussion-based series for agencies and individuals who work with transition-aged youth and young adults. Panel discussants will offer creative approaches to engagement, culturally responsive approaches, and developmentally appropriate service design. Register now for this five-part series that launches November 30!
Featured Panelists on the November 30th Kick-Off Session
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If These Cells Could Talk is a mini-documentary created by the H2O Project that explores the impacts of school-based microaggressions and structural racism in the education system on the Black body. This brief film highlights research connecting racial stress in white spaces to adverse health outcomes for Black students. Learn from interviews with Black students and researchers as they uncover the cell quality depletion caused by American schooling and identify the protective factors that support regeneration in the face of oppressive conditions. This is a powerful look into concrete ways we might protect not only Black youth but all young people by creating a more humanizing school experience for them. We are honored to have filmmaker Tiffani Marie join us for our kick-off session of Aging Out or Growing Together.
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Series 2: The series “Creating Safe Spaces for Peer Support Providers to Explore Anti-Racist Practices in Peer Support Delivery” launches in December. This moderated discussion invites BIPOC peers to problem-solve the challenge of creating safe spaces within organizations to support each other and their BIPOC colleagues. It includes exploration of anti-racist strategies within the peer support delivery model and offers peer-to-peer coaching on career path strategies for BIPOC peers. Register now for the series!
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We’re proud to share two newly published tip sheets designed to empower youth peer providers with tools and practices on trauma-informed principles, ethics and boundaries, and self-care. |
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» Ethics and Boundaries for Youth Peer Providers
Building a strong sense of ethics and boundaries is essential to peer youth providers’ professional development, and to developing the emerging workforce as a whole. This resource provides an overview of ethics and boundaries for youth peer provider roles. Employing clear definitions and multimedia exercises, this resource can be used by individuals, groups, or supervisors to support peer providers’ understanding and application of ethics and boundaries. Access here.
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» Bringing Trauma-Informed Principles into Youth Peer Relationships
Youth peer providers can use this tip sheet to learn more about bringing trauma-informed principles into their work. The tip sheet defines trauma-informed care and offers concrete examples of what it might look like in common scenarios. It also poses reflection questions to help youth peer providers identify and apply trauma-informed practices. Read this tip sheet to deepen your understanding of themes such as safety, trustworthiness, transparency, empowerment, voice and choice, collaboration and mutuality, and more. Access here.
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Contact the Pacific Southwest MHTTC
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Disclaimer: This announcement is supported by SAMHSA of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award over four years (2019-2023) with 100 percent funded by SAMHSA/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by SAMHSA/HHS, or the U.S. Government.
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