Youth mental health needs existed before the pandemic; indeed, while these needs were clearly growing for years there has long been a mismatch between the level of need and the services available.
By Nia West-Bey Our nation has a well-documented shortage of clinical mental health providers. The truth is that we will never have enough mental health clinicians to meet young people’s mental health needs, nor are they the kinds of providers that young people prefer. CLASP’s…
On April 4 and 5, 2023, The Utah Office of Substance Use and Mental Health, the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), and the National Alliance on Mental Illness, UTAH (NAMI Utah) hosted the first-ever Youth-in-Transition Policy Summit. The summit highlighted five policies focused…
Innovations in Youth Mental Health By Nia West-Bey Despite the unprecedented attention, we have yet to make a dent in the youth mental health crisis, particularly among young people from marginalized communities. Overall levels of anxiety and depression remain high. Federal policy efforts have been…
On December 1, Nia West-Bey and Jesse Fairbanks spoke at the Congressional Hunger Center’s “Gen Z and Food Security: A Focus on Our Nation’s Young Adults.”
On October 29, Nia West-Bey, New Deal for Youth (ND4Y) Changemaker Chris Sutton, and partners from Community Legal Services of Philadelphia presented at the National Legal Aid and Defenders Association Annual Conference. The presentation addressed the ethics of representing young people across differences and authentically…
On September 29, Nia West-Bey spoke at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 51st Annual Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C. She was a panelist at a session titled “Black Women Best: Preserving Mental Health.”