Advocacy Spotlight

Hogg Foundation Grant - "Improving Mental Health Supports for Homeless and Transitioning Youth"

Runaway, homeless, and foster youth are disproportionately people of color, and they experience higher rates of mental health issues than young adults in the general population.  The challenges that homelessness and strained family relations can present for young people transitioning to self-sufficiency are intuitive.  Recent research indicates that mental health issues also pose specific challenges for youth transitioning to adulthood, including finding services tailored to their needs, qualifying for adult programs, and navigating multiple programs across delivery systems.  For runaway, homeless, and transitioning foster youth, this means the challenges they face in securing housing and employment, building mature relationships, and passing other milestones to adulthood may be exacerbated by mental health issues. 

An increasing number of services are available to these youth.  Nonetheless, significant gaps in services continue, and there is growing concern over whether existing services really meet youths' needs.  Close to 60% of homeless youth in a recent California study reported receiving some form of mental health service, but less than half found them to be helpful.  Because young adults have the lowest help-seeking behavior of any age group, it is important that services be accessible and appealing, but research has found they are often not appropriate for youth.  Moreover, other services may not be adequate, since not all service providers are trained to work with young people or people with mental health conditions. 

Thanks to a generous grant from the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health at the University of Texas, TNOYS is conducting a policy research project to help address these issues.  Through partnerships with ten youth service providers around the state, we have hired a research team comprised of youth ages 18-24 who are homeless and/or have aged out of foster care. The youth research team is interviewing other youth who have been homeless and/or aged out of foster care in Texas about the challenges they have faced and their ideas for addressing those challenges through policy and program changes.  We are also facilitating focus groups with homeless youth throughout the state and interviewing staff at participating service provider organizations.  Our final product will be a youth and provider informed report that details the challenges that runaway, homeless, and transitioning foster youth with mental health issues face while transitioning to adulthood and presents pragmatic policy recommendations for addressing those challenges. 

For more information about this project, contact Christine Gendron at cgendron@tnoys.org.  To read the Hogg Foundation's press release about our project, click here.

Read the final grant report: Voices of Experience - Improving Mental Health Supports for Homeless & Transitioning Youth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hogg Foundation Grant - "Youth in Action: Justice for Youth with Mental Health Conditions"

An estimated 7 out of 10 youth in the juvenile justice system nationwide have at least one mental health condition. In Texas, 41 percent of youth on probation have a confirmed mental health diagnosis, and 32 percent of youth who are incarcerated have one. The Texas juvenile justice system is essentially serving as a system for providing children’s mental health care. This is troubling because correctional systems are not designed to provide treatment for mental illness, and funneling youth with mental health conditions into these systems does not facilitate development into healthy, functioning adults. Mental health care in the juvenile justice system is far from sufficient and may even be out of reach; less than a third of youth in Texas’s system receive adequate mental health services. In fact, since mentally ill youth are at a significantly higher risk of victimization by other juveniles while in detention, and involvement in the corrections system may disconnect them from important family and community support, placing youth with mental health conditions in the juvenile correctional system rather than providing them with appropriate community-based treatment may actually exacerbate their struggles. 

We propose to improve public policy around the intersection of mental health and juvenile justice in Texas by facilitating the development of a policy agenda that is truly youth-driven and the coordination of advocacy efforts that are youth-led.  Specific strategies we will employ will include training youth in advocacy and methods for policy research, developing a policy report reflective of youths’ voices, facilitating the development of a vision and policy agenda created by youth, coordinating a forum for youth to share their research and ideas, and using media tools to build support for policies that will better serve Texas youth. 

Short-term Goals:

1. Facilitate the development of a policy agenda related to the intersection of mental health and juvenile justice that is truly youth driven.

2. Provide opportunities for youth to promote that agenda through methods that are conducive to facilitating policy change.

Long-term Goals:

1. Ensure that advocacy efforts around mental health and juvenile justice in Texas include an authentic youth voice.

2. Create a network of youth who are engaged in public policy and equipped to advocate for the services they need

3. Contribute to the development of a mental health service delivery system in Texas that will prevent youth from becoming involved in the justice system.

4. Guide Texas policymakers in creating a J.J. system that offers quality mental health services, recognizes youths’ strengths, and incorporates concepts of Positive Youth Development (PYD) so that their mental, emotional, and social needs are met.

Youth Recruitment Flyer
Youth Application

 

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