Growing up in Philadelphia, Nancy Santiago lived in what she described as “tough circumstances, with an outrageous situation on my hands. And every time I went to ask for help, there was none.”
Her drug-addicted father was abusive, while her grandmother ran a speakeasy to help support the family. When Santiago had problems, her evangelical relatives told her to “pray on it.”
Yet her challenging upbringing led her into a career in education, philanthropy and public service, including positions at the Department of Education and the Department of Labor under President Barack Obama and more recently at the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy under President Joe Biden.
It was there that Santiago, reflecting on her own experiences, began thinking about young people and mental health. “Here I am, 54-year-old me, saying, what would 16-year-old me have loved?” she said. “How do we help kids who may not be insured or have access to therapy, or with parents who don’t know how to access services? How do I create a way for these kids to get help?”
Now Santiago has helped create the Youth Mental Health Corps, a first-of-its-kind initiative that will launch this fall, initially in four states, to address the country’s youth mental health crisis. This innovative program will recruit young volunteers to work in assisting other youngsters who are struggling with mental health issues. The volunteers who sign up will receive training and also a state-specific credential in the behavioral health field.
Corps members will work for a year (or two, if they choose) with schools, community organizations or nonprofits, aiming to connect other young people to mental health support. They will also receive a living stipend for their work.
The public/private partnership is backed by AmeriCorps, the federal agency for volunteering and national service, and by funders like the Schultz Family Foundation, Pinterest and America Forward, a nonpartisan initiative of New Profit, a national venture philanthropy fund.
Santiago explained that this program will not only serve the mental health needs of young people — but it will also help increase the pipeline of young people pursuing studies and careers in fields like social work or psychology.
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy calls youth mental health “the defining public health issue of our time.”
Michael D. Smith, AmeriCorps CEO, said that he was thrilled to be launching the Youth Mental Health Corps on the 30th anniversary of President Clinton swearing in the first class of Americorps members in 1994. “What I love about AmeriCorps is that we are not stale. We are not status quo. We are able to respond to the biggest challenges of the day — and there is potentially no greater challenge that our young people are facing right now than the youth mental health crisis,” Smith said.
Smith pointed to figures from the 2021 Surgeon General’s Advisory on Protecting Youth Mental Health, such as the fact that 1 out of 3 high school students reported persistent feelings of hopelessness, and that the second leading cause of death for youth between 10 and 14 is suicide.
Smith noted that it has not been a problem, despite the partisan political climate, bringing states on board with the Corps. “National service is a place where people come together across party lines,” he said. “We have a strong bipartisan tradition of service and civic engagement and supporting the work that AmeriCorps does. And so this is not a blue state or a red state issue, there isn’t one side of the aisle or the other.”
The Youth Mental Health Corps will be launching this fall in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota and Texas. By fall 2025, it will expand to 11 states including several with significant Latino populations such California, New Jersey, New York and Utah. Anyone ages 18 to 24 with a high school diploma can apply to serve in the Corps, which will have part-time and full-time opportunities available.
A lack of access impacts Latino, Black youth
This initiative comes as mental health issues in the Latino community have drawn the concern of lawmakers and experts. Rising Latino suicide rates have worried community leaders, while Latinos lag other racial and ethnic groups in accessing mental health care. The National Alliance on Mental Illness estimates than more than half of Latino young adults ages 18 to 25 with serious mental illness may not receive treatment.
“The reality is that the crisis of lack of access to mental health services for Black and Latino youth has been ongoing for decades,” said Kiara Alvarez, assistant professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Now that there has been greater attention, greater openness to talking about youth mental health, in some ways we are catching up to a crisis that has been here all along.”
According to Alvarez, young Latinos experience many of the same mental health stressors as other young Americans — issues related to family, friends and romantic relationships — but face a set of other challenges, too.
“For Latinos specifically, there are challenges with experiencing discrimination, with experiencing a sense that the U.S. is closed off to Latinos, and the negative portrayals of Latinos in the media … It impacts their sense of worth and their sense of how they are seen by the people around them.”
Immigrant youth, and the children of immigrants, often have to deal with an uncertain future or worry about parents who might at risk of deportation. Studies have shown that young Latinos living in states with anti-immigrant policies were linked to higher odds of chronic mental health conditions.
Many Latinos still feel a stigma around seeking mental health care. “There is this worry that other people will see you as ‘loca’ or ‘mal de la mente,’ or parents worry that they will not be seen as good parents,” Alvarez said.
Compounding the problem, she pointed out, is that sometimes Latinos who do try to access mental health care encounter services that have not been set up in culturally competent ways; some Latinos report meetings with therapists that leave them feeling shamed, judged or misunderstood.
A young person helps youth with stressors ‘similar to the ones I faced’
Nelly Grosso is a college junior in Denver who is part of Youth Mental Health Corps inaugural class. Of Argentinian descent, she has worked with Colorado Youth for a Change, which she describes as “a once in a lifetime opportunity” especially “because a lot of the barriers and stressors my students have are similar to the ones I faced when I was in high school.”
Grosso has worked primarily with young people who are immigrants or first-generation Americans. These high school students in her caseload are relatively close to her in age, so she found it easy to relate to them culturally, musically, and even through TikTok. She helps students with their academic work, to access mental health services, or sometimes, “just as someone who they can talk to, to be an ear to listen to them.”
Grosso plans to obtain a bachelor’s degree and then pursue a master’s in social work. “As first-generation Americans, I feel like our voice have often been pushed to the side. But I’ve learned how to use my lived experience to show that I matter, and that that my experience matters.”
Recently, on the last day of school, Grosso was clearing out her office when she heard running footsteps in the hall. It was one of the students in her caseload, who ran through the school on the final day of the term to find her, to make sure he told her goodbye. Grosso was touched to learn how much of an impact she had made on him.
“In my experience in high school, I didn’t really think that anyone cared that I was there,” Grosso reflected. “So for me to be able to show other students that I care about them, that I am checking in on them, is important … I can tell them, ‘I want to see you. I’m so happy you are here at school.’ And that is healing for all of us.”
