Each quarter, the Pacific Southwest MHTTC is excited to share with you Youth & Young Adults Now: Vision, Voice, and Ventures!

Our Center has a special focus on supporting youth and young adults (YYA) of transition age. The transition to adulthood is an important time in young people’s lives—a time for new independence, new challenges, and new opportunities for growth. It’s also a crucial time to support young people who are living with mental health challenges, who are involved in youth-serving systems, or who are at increased chance of developing mental health needs. 

When we amplify YYA voice, choice, and leadership, we create space for them to thrive. 

Our YYA Team Leads, Oriana Ides and Evelyn Clark, guide us in this work and are special contributors to each issue of Youth & Young Adults Now. In this final edition of the quarterly newsletters, we are celebrating the innovative programming Oriana and Evelyn initiated and led this project year. They’ve wrapped up each of their new series that serve YYA providers and agencies, and BIPOC Peer Professionals, and are now looking ahead to our next year of services, which starts on October 1, 2023. Our Center is gearing up for our sixth year of training, technical assistance, and programming for the mental health workforce, and as we sit in reflection, we’re pausing to assess what we’ve done, and what areas we may need to deepen and explore, so we can bring forth the programming that best serves the needs and interests of our network.    

Over the past few months, we’ve been busy, rounding up the last of our events and proud to release a few new products. Please read on for this special release, highlights of learnings, glimmers of hope from the YYA series, and so much more.

Youth who are impacted by the justice system deserve access to support, but they often do not receive mental health services. Youth peer support is changing that narrative. 

Youth who are impacted by the justice system are powerful agents of change. There are growing efforts to support young people with justice-impacted experience to become certified peer specialists. Check out this youth spotlight on a phenomenal person who is providing peer support while incarcerated.

Meet Kris Locus

Kris Locus (they/she) CPRS, CTRC is passionate about using their lived experience as a Nonbinary Queer BIPOC to highlight the necessity and value of Peers in all spaces. Now, Kris works as the Transitional Age Youth (TAY) Coordinator for On Our Own of Maryland, advocating for the inclusion of young adults as equal partners in systems change on local, state, and national levels. As the TAY Coordinator, Kris' work serves to empower young adults by connecting them to leadership and professional development opportunities, events, and training. They develop and coordinate tailored training and technical assistance for youth-serving programs, while also mentoring aspiring peers and advocates through the peer recovery specialist certification process.

Kris has been instrumental in lifting young people’s voices in Maryland, nationally, and internationally! In July, Kris joined the National Training and Technical Assistance Center for Child, Youth and Family Mental Health in-person systems of care summit in Baltimore, MD. They were the keynote speaker for Day 1, featuring the youth panel, and on Day 2 spoke to Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion within peer support. They also joined the BIPOC peer series through MHTTC as a subject matter expert on building connections. We are so thrilled to spotlight Kris and the work they do every day to make sure youth are getting the support they need through an Anti-racist lens. Thank you, Kris!

United Playaz

United Playaz is an incredible organization, based in San Francisco, California, rooted in the premise that it takes the ‘hood to save the ‘hood. United Playaz boldly demands that solutions to address community violence, poverty and other social issues impacting BIPOC communities come from those most impacted by these injustices they face. Starting with children as young as preschool, spanning beyond school into adulthood, this multitiered and multifaceted programming works to cultivate a sense of belonging and self-value in folx often discarded by the systems and structures that claim to support them.

Jones Community Solutions

A Black Owned Small Business & Social Enterprise Founded In 2013 Specializing In Peer Consultation. Jones Community Solutions is Proudly Partnered With Washington State Health Care Authority, Providing Certified Peer Counselor Trainings.

Northwest Credible Messenger

True justice is actually an act and application of love in the public sector (systems). Love, language, and the opportunity to continue to define what love looks like in our communities and systems is our #1 focus at Northwest Credible Messenger. NWCM recently became a certified peer counselor training hub in Washington state, one of two BIPOC-led peer organizations.

Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective

BEAM is a national training, movement-building, and grant-making institution that is dedicated to the healing, wellness, and liberation of Black and marginalized communities.

On Our Own of Maryland

On Our Own of Maryland, Inc. (OOOMD) is a statewide peer-operated behavioral health advocacy and education organization which promotes equality, justice, autonomy, and choice about life decisions for individuals with mental health and substance use needs.

» The Time Families Do: Mental Health, Peer Supports, and Services for the Families of Incarcerated Loved Ones

HAPPENING TODAY!

Thursday, September 28, 3:00 - 4:30 p.m. PT (view your time zone)

Youth and family members of those currently and previously incarcerated are often called “hidden victims.”  Incarceration can profoundly impact families, who may experience ambiguous loss and deep disruptions during and after their loved one’s detention.  The mental health consequences for incarcerated individuals can be compounded by the damage experienced by their families. Incarcerated Individuals and their families need mental health support during the term of incarceration, through the challenges of reentry, and while navigating the long-term effects of family separation.  Some providers specialize in working with the families of currently and formerly incarcerated people and have developed strategies for disrupting cycles of intergenerational trauma.  These lessons can teach others in the mental health workforce (including clinicians, peers, and school mental health personnel) to deliver therapeutic support to clients impacted by incarceration. 

The Pacific Southwest MHTTC is pleased to hold a special 90-minute session to foster learning about how to assist the families of the incarcerated.  Our Center’s Technical Assistance Specialist, Evelyn Clark, will host a presentation by Dad’s M.O.V.E., a family-run organization. This session invites space for Q&A and dialogue and will highlight this organization’s approaches, models, and interventions that are responsive to the needs of the families of incarcerated loved ones.  

» Creating Safe Spaces for Peer Support Providers and Incorporating Anti-racist Practices in Peer Support Delivery

Facilitated and created by YYA Co-Team Lead Evelyn Clark, CPC, this six-part learning series elevated the critical question of how BIPOC peer professionals and allied individuals and organizations can create inclusive and safe spaces in work settings. With a courageous group of well established and emerging leaders in the field of peer support, each session’s guest speakers shared their perspectives and recommendations around various threads of this question, and ideas on the implementation of anti-racist practices. The peer support field is rapidly expanding, with SAMHSA’s National Model Standards for Peer Support Certification and many states developing certification and training opportunities.  

In Session 4, Career Paths for Peer Support Specialists, Evelyn shared a background on the inequities for peer support positions in the field, causes of burnout and compassion fatigue and a peer professionals career resource list.   

On August 30th, Session 5, Connection Building & Next Steps created an opportunity for peer providers to build community, and share contacts and input on how this program can expand in the next year. We welcome you to view the responses from that session here, and drop us a line at pacificsouthwest@mhttcnetwork.org with your suggestions, ideas, and requests for topics, speakers, and themes for an expanded peer support series. Please help us shape an effective and supportive affinity group that best fits the needs of this field.  

We were encouraged to hear feedback on this year’s series from our network and are sharing a few highlights below.   

Highlights & Learnings from the Safe Spaces for Peer Support Providers Series:

• “The material that was discussed was extremely valuable and even more so that it was presented by a panel of mostly BIPOC women.”
• “Holding space for the difficulties that comes with being a BIPOC Peer Provider and being met with Racism either via microaggressions or in [the] form of policy. Just talking about the difficulties makes it real and more manageable to know other folks are dealing with this and sharing how they do it.”
• “The conversation was most useful to me. Like minded peers sharing lived experience is powerful medicine.”
• “Learning how to provide effective services for those of the BIPOC community inside and outside of my job.”
• “The sense of community and just being in such a largely Black and Brown space, together. Shared cultural language.”

» Aging Out or Growing Together? Flipping the Youth Services Paradigm to Better Support Young Adulthood

In creating and facilitating this six-part series, Oriana Ides’ vision was to hold an open forum and discussion group for agencies and individuals that serve transition-aged youth and young adults, and to examine how our collective organizational values, implementation strategies, program design, and goals might expand to support the evolving, holistic needs of this age group.

Oriana wove culturally relevant, healing art, quotes, and videos in the presentations of each session, along with voices from the field as impactful panel discussions. This bi-monthly series started in November and concluded in July, with the closing session featuring wisdom and reflections from three YYA serving organization leaders, based in the San Francisco Bay Area.  We’re proud to offer the recording and slide decks from this session here, along with a few select speaker quotes.

• “It is about building relationships. It's also about being willing to open up… you want to ask them questions, and you want to learn about them, and you want to figure out how you can help them, right? On the same level, you have to be willing to give a little bit of yourself. Talk a little bit about your experience: ‘How can I help you? I can help you because I have similar experiences that I have navigated’.” – Mariaynez Carrasco

• “I've always tried to understand, for anybody I'm working with, ‘What's your desires? What's your dreams, you know? Let's not just keep you stuck in patching you up to where you were before you came in. Where can we take you, you know. Where's your next level? Where are you going? How can we dream a little bit? How can we push into it?’” – John Torres



• “We still have to empower and know who we are right? That's why, when they say OG, they say Original Gangster – no! It's Original Guidance. It's for us to get information so we could pass down to educate our people.” – Rudy Corpuz
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Keep an eye out for our forthcoming 5 Gems: Glimmers of Hope –recaps with five essential learnings from Sessions 4 and 5 of this series.  And lastly, as Oriana and our MHTTC team gear up for our next round of programming to build on learnings from this past series, we would love to hear from you - where would you like to see this work evolve? In what areas of your own work would you like this community to support you? Let us know at pacificsouthwest@mhttcnetwork.org.

» Social Media & Youth: Perils, Powers, and Pathways to Resilience: A Resource Compendium to Assist Social Media and Mental Health Literacy

The mental health workforce can help their clients build social media literacy – a  skill set necessary for equitable mental health. As a first step, mental health providers should pursue their own social media literacy: the practical, cognitive, and affective competences required to access, analyze, evaluate, and create content on social media in a variety of contexts. When providers are digitally literate, they are more prepared to support youth, young adults, and caregivers to develop and maintain healthy relationships with social media. These skills can assist the mental health workforce in helping clients set appropriate boundaries, recognize mis- or disinformation, and protect themselves from the negative consequences of exposure to damaging content. 

This resource is a part of our Pacific Southwest MHTTC’s suite of programming, aimed to enhance the mental and school mental health workforce’s skills, knowledge, and awareness of the positive and negative psychological impacts of social media on youth and young adults.

We offer this list of resources, guidelines, and tips to support healthy use of social media.  These free, publicly accessible links give mental health providers information about the risks and benefits of social media for adolescents and youth. The links are offered as resources to be distributed to providers’ clients, including youth and their family/caregivers.

» Nationwide Complex Trauma Trainer -Training Curriculum

In association with the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, a SAMHSA funded program, we are sharing a Train the Trainer Curriculum call for applications, led by The Complex Trauma Training Consortium (CTTC). Over the next four years, the CTTC will train over 200 trainers across 60 field sites nationwide. These complex trauma knowledge hubs will then be equipped to provide local trainings to multidisciplinary providers across the social services continuum. For more information and to learn about starting a training field site in your area or joining an existing team, drop a line to manager@foundationtrust.org.

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» Physical Activity to Improve Mental Health in Adolescents

October 4  • 10 a.m. PT (view your time zone)

Held by the Northwest MHTTC, this 2-hour webinar presents a trauma-informed approach to coaching and teaching youth. 206 South is a Seattle-based non-profit organization that provides weightlifting and martial arts training to youth and adults. Hear about how 206 South co-founder Adrianna Kara was able to translate a tumultuous childhood and high ACE score into building a community center where she mentors youth, and travels the country teaching weightlifting.

Register for Physical Activity to Improve Mental Health in Adolescents >

» Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Reference Guide

MHTTC Network

A new release from the MHTTC Network, this guide focuses on supporting intentional dialogue about diversity, equity, and inclusion. As essential as these terms are for bridging the gaps that impact mental health, they are also often misused and misunderstood. Our Network developed the guide to clarify the position of MHTTCs nationwide when issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion are discussed. Peruse this brief, eight-page resource to better understand the role of the MHTTC Network as a vehicle to promote and implement DEI principles in all behavioral health practices.

Access MHTTC Guide >

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» Toolkit for Implementing Authentic Youth Engagement Strategies Within State Advisory Groups (2023)

Youth MOVE

We’re shining the spotlight on our allied organization, Youth MOVE (Motivating Others through Voices of Experience) National, who co-authored this document, which aims to help organizations address the challenges of recruiting and retaining youth participation in State Advisory Groups. The section on promoting youth recruitment and retention on State Advisory Groups (SAG) provides an assessment form, as well as a discussion of challenges and solutions for recruiting youth, developing mentorship programs, and youth conference/summit planning.

AccessYouth MOVE Toolkit >

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» Reducing Public Stigma Toward Individuals with Psychosis Across Race and Gender: A Randomized Controlled Trial of Young Adults

Our Region 9 is proud to share this study for which our Research Specialist, Amanda Lipp, is a contributing author. This randomized controlled study replicated and extended previous research findings, by showing stigma reduction across videos that differ in the presenter's gender and race, thus enhancing generalizability. The videos described the experience of psychosis and reduced stigma, suggesting their potential utility on social media platforms to increase the likelihood of seeking services and ultimately may improve access to care among young individuals with psychosis. Future research should address intersectional stigma experiences by focusing on race/gender and culturally tailoring the narrative.

View Resource >