PA Teen Mental Health Coalition

CBOs offer brief intervention and support for teens needing help navigating transitions, relationships, academic pressures, and early signs and symptoms of mental health needs.

CBOs connect and educate teens and families about resources that address social determinants of health like food banks, housing, rent and utility assistance, transportation, and medical support. They also collaborate with primary care and behavioral health systems, schools, and juvenile justice to assist with health system navigation and engagement.

Many CBOs provide on-site individual, group, and family therapy to teens. These counseling services are often accessible on a drop-in basis and are co-located with after-school programs. Increased access to counseling services in trusted community spaces helps reduce the stigma around mental health services. These services are often covered by the CBO and not reimbursed by an insurance provider; some CBOs do bill insurance including Medicaid.

In addition to evidence-based emotional learning, CBOs provide safe spaces for developing skills for stress management, meditation, and self-care planning. They also offer trauma-informed programs and services, art therapy, restorative practices, and grief and loss support. These services can serve as protective factors that provide teens with skills to cope with future stressors and provide opportunities to build interpersonal and communication skills.

Through mental health awareness education, life skills training, and service learning, teens build resilience and improve their overall wellbeing. Programs include evidence-based social-emotional learning curricula that support identity formation, confidence building, healing from generational trauma, and developing a sense of belonging.

Teens also build skills in stress management, self-care planning, healthy relationships, problem solving, conflict resolution, goal setting, time management, leadership and communication. Through service-learning projects and coaching support youth have opportunities to practice and apply these skills in real-world settings.

Teens are connected to trusted relationships with caring adults through mentorship, career coaching, and/or specialty programs. CBOs provide one-on-one mentoring, science technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM) education, internship programs, and career pathway development that helps match teens’ skills and interests with compatible careers.

These programs also support positive mental health. For example, performance arts programs may include education on communicating positive mental health messages and exploring the impact of current events and media on mental health.

Community-based organizations (CBOs) engage teen leaders to help design programs, share prevention messages, and provide mentoring support to their peers. Teen leaders encourage other youth to develop healthy coping strategies, avoid risk-taking behaviors, and seek counseling or additional mental health support when needed.

Peer support represents a unique approach to fostering mutual relationships and promoting wellbeing, grounded in understanding and collaboration. It focuses on developing skills and building resources that empower youth to lead the lives they want for themselves. Consistent evidence shows that peer support improves outcomes, increases empowerment, and fosters a greater sense of hope.

Connecting community-based organizations (CBOs) with health systems creates multiple entry points into the system of care through community-based assessment and referrals, post-intervention support, and peer support services. CBOs can also help coordinate follow-up with healthcare providers, encourage family and teen engagement in care, and connect youth to crisis services when necessary.

CBOs provide safe spaces for youth along with structured activities that build resilience and help prevent violence through early intervention. They also connect youth with caring adults who play a critical role in preventing violence and trauma and responding to community needs as they arise.

CBOs support these efforts by screening for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), providing training in trauma-informed care and other youth-related needs, offering Mental Health First Aid training, and promoting mandated reporting and best practices in child abuse prevention. In addition, they engage in prevention programming, community outreach, and education, while also helping families navigate the medical and legal systems following victimization.