Child & Adolescent Mental Health

Children need nurturing relationships with their caregivers and communities to build trust and a feeling of safety and belonging in the world. This early relational health can be a keystone of mental wellness and resiliency, preparing children to thrive in a challenging world. During a national emergency in child and adolescent mental health, it is…

In October, the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Children’s Hospital Association issued a joint Declaration of National Emergency in Child and Adolescent Mental Health. This webinar explores the scope of the problem. We’ll answer questions including: How do we know there is a problem and what does…

In May 2022, the Children, Youth & Family Funders Roundtable (Roundtable) held three virtual calls focused on the children and youth mental health crisis, including a funder peer call designed to identify shared questions and obstacles to funding. Five themes emerged: 1) making mental health a policy and funding priority, 2) developing the mental health…

Healthy and positive child development emerges best in the context of nurturing, warm, and responsive early parent- and caregiver-child relationships, when children are surrounded by safe communities with strong trust and social connectedness. This landing page offers information on the Center for the Study of Social Policy’s approach, frequently asked questions, blog posts, additional resources,…

The Perspectives on Early Relational Health Series brings together a diverse group of parents, pediatricians, researchers, and providers to share their perspectives on why early relational health matters, and what they are doing to support and promote foundational early relationships.

At the end of 2021, more than two dozen funders came together for the first Early Relational Health (ERH) Funders Summit, co-sponsored by Einhorn Collaborative with the ERH Coordinating Center at the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP). These funders are part of a new community – the ERH Funders Community – who…

For decades, field leaders and funders have focused on developmental screening and kindergarten readiness as markers of child and family well-being. While those efforts have advanced a policy and community emphasis on Head Start, universal Pre-K, and other efforts in early education, public officials have placed much less emphasis on the critical importance of foundational…

This article from the American Academy of Pediatrics provides strategies and concrete examples to help pediatric health clinicians, schools, and other community partners work together toward youth suicide prevention efforts. Strategies include building community partnerships,

Mental Health First Aid is a training program for peers, teachers, parents, anyone who wants to know how to identify mental health issues and respond to them appropriately.

A new US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) study published in the American Medical Association’s journal JAMA Pediatrics reports significant increases in the number of children diagnosed with mental health conditions. The study, conducted by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), finds that between 2016 and 2020, the number of children ages…

Historic and modern-day policies rooted in discrimination and oppression have created and widened harmful inequities impacting many communities of color. Effectively and equitably addressing mental health requires intervening at systemic and policy levels to dismantle the structures that produce negative outcomes like generational poverty, intergenerational and cultural trauma, racism, sexism, and ableism. CLASP identified these…

These infographics from 2020 and 2021 show the widespread nature of the mental health crisis among young people and the challenges they face accessing treatment.

This blog post reviews data on young people’s mental health and outlines specific policy change recommendations, including youth mobile crisis response services, youth peer support, app- and text-based telehealth, increasing capacity of community-based organizations, culturally-responsive ACEs screening and trauma-informed care, and growing the behavioral workforce pipeline.

CLASP’s youth and young adult mental health framework calls for policies that increase access to healing, transformative mental health supports. CLASP has collaborated with partners over 2019 and 2020 to advance systems and policy changes supporting well-being for transition-age youth (ages 16-17) and young adults (ages 18-25). Through this work, they identified a set of…

This brief from CLASP offers a set of principles policymakers and other stakeholders can consider as they implement ARPA’s mental health provisions. It provides an overview of opportunities within the law to address mental health needs, and suggests immediate and longer-term policy recommendations that help to lift the longstanding barriers people of color and other…

Decades of research have demonstrated the effectiveness of social and emotional learning (SEL) for supporting students’ academics, behaviors, mental health, and long-term success. The ARP’s historic levels of K-12 dollars offer a critical opportunity to invest in a long-term foundation for evidence-based, systemic implementation of SEL that fully supports students and schools through the pandemic…

It’s hard to know where or how to start sometimes. If you are interested in learning more about evidence-based SEL programs, this guide is a great place to start. Research shows that well-implemented, evidence-based SEL programs are the most effective way to support young people’s success and well-being in school and beyond. This consumer report-style…

Workforce development programs can benefit greatly from integrating social and emotional learning into their programs. This article provides a framework for how states can systematically integrate SEL and workforce development.

This is the official declaration of the national emergency, stemming from soaring rates of mental health needs during the pandemic, but not limited to the pandemic. It includes a list of necessary steps for support.

This research follows a nationwide survey of adolescents on their mental health and suicidality during the pandemic. The research takes a particular look at feelings of connectedness, either in person or virtually and how those affect well-being.

80% of parents are concerned about the mental health of their children. This infographic from The Hopeful Futures Campaign features data from a national survey on public perceptions of mental health, especially among youth. The survey results dive into support for solutions.

This thorough article examines who is affected by the child and youth mental health crisis, research into causes, and opportunities to address it.

The New York Times is starting a new series on the child and youth mental health crisis, with articles on how to help teens, understanding youth suicidality, an in-depth look at their reporting process, and why anxiety and depression seem particularly prevalent.

The pandemic is not the only reason. This article reviews several recent studies on the mental health crisis and its causes.

This opinion piece from Derek Thompson in the Atlantic outlines four reasons propelling the youth mental health crisis today – social media use; reduced sociality; a stressful, interconnected world; and modern parenting strategies. Thompson also dispels three common myths about the mental health crisis – that the crisis is also leading to an increase in…