Women's Giving Circle: Investing to Strengthen Youth Mental Health Access
Since 2022, the Women’s Giving Circle (WGC) at the Community Foundation of Northern Nevada has provided over $500,000 designated to support youth mental health throughout Washoe County. These grants complete the Women’s Giving Circle’s three-year focus on Youth Mental Health, which the Circle had identified as a high-priority area of need in our community.
2022 Grant: Quest Counseling
Quest Counseling received a grant to help launch a Child Psychiatric Program, which aims to have the following program impacts:
- Reduce symptoms, increase functioning, and prevent out-of-home placement for children.
- Stabilize clients in crisis in an outpatient setting using trauma-informed treatment.
- Promote healthy coping skills and self-confidence.
- Decrease the need for acute care stays and resolve mental health crises in an outpatient setting, providing wrap-around services in one location.
- Reduce wait times for clients and increase timely access to care.
Services provided by the program include individual and group therapy sessions, crisis services, screening for ACES (Adverse Childhood Experiences), Psychiatric evaluation and treatment, and other therapies and services. The program served 238 youth in year 1 and grew to serve 320 youth in year 2. Year to date from 2024 through June, 275 clients have been served. To support the growth of the program Quest has added additional providers and supported interns training to be future providers to meet the needs of the community. In addition to helping youth, Quest has also been able to serve the families of those children through family sessions. Quest’s Child Psychiatric Program has become a vital and reliable resource for families in the community.
2023 Grant: The Children’s Cabinet
Grant funding supported the Children’s Cabinet’s Washoe County Youth Mental Health Collective.
In addition to the grant funds from the Women’s Giving Circle, an additional $200,000 was leveraged through public and private sources to fund a new Youth Mental Health Collective Impact Advisor position.
At the end of August 2023, Annie Zucker was hired to fill this position. Her job description was “to provide leadership with private and public partners across northern Nevada to build and direct collective impact initiatives to address our region’s youth mental health crisis.” Since then, Annie has directed a Community Needs Assessment, analyzed the results, conducted a second Youth Mental Health Summit, and identified six key action priorities, as well as detailed plans to address each in the coming months:
- Prevalence: More than a third of the 3,000 Washoe County School District (WCSD) 7th graders screened for Signs of Suicide, screened positive (at risk).
- Accessibility: Wait times to see a provider in Washoe County can be up to 3 months.
- Stigma: Stigma surrounding mental health remains a significant barrier for youth seeking help.
- Intervention: School-based interventions can help identify and address behavioral health needs early on.
- Family and Community Support: Interventions focused on improving conflict resolution and supporting parenting strategies can reduce long-term suicide risk in youth.
- Racial and Ethnic Disparities: Hispanic students are 4% more likely to attempt suicide; Native American students are 11% more likely to attempt suicide.
Annie, collaborating with the Nevada Discovery Museum’s excellent exhibit on mental health, and a state-wide gathering of high school leaders in May has also developed plans to initiate a local, ongoing youth mental health team of students from each middle and high school to become ombudsmen for mental health concerns in their schools.
2024 Grant: The Children’s Cabinet
Based on needs identified by the Youth Mental Health Collective Impact Advisor, the 2024 grant of $150,000 will support the Children’s Cabinet’s Signs of Suicide Family Support Navigator Position over the next three years. This program will help families whose child screens positive for Signs of Suicide by assessing the social determinants and family dynamics impacting their ability to access mental health support. The navigator acts as a guide, providing information, support, and advocacy to help families navigate complex systems and overcome barriers to accessing necessary resources.
Until now, those families were simply notified that their child screened as “at risk” for suicide, but were not given any help in accessing needed services to deal with the situation. More than one-third of 7th graders screened by the WCSD are deemed “at risk” for suicide, and their families need support.
The WGC worked intentionally to make a meaningful impact in this issue area over the last three years and is proud of the work being done by both Quest Counseling and The Children’s Cabinet through these grants.
Learn more about the Women's Giving Circle.
