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May is Mental Health Awareness Month. CLASP’s mental health work centers on systems and policy change with an explicit focus on how race and ethnicity affect a person’s interactions with systems and services. We are working to reimagine how our national, state, and local mental and behavioral health systems could better serve people living in households with low incomes. The following resources offer insight into key issues, strategies, and principles surrounding mental health.
In 2021, the U.S. Surgeon General’s office issued an unprecedented advisory about the critical state of youth mental health. Though young people, particularly young people of color and those living in poverty, were facing a growing mental health need before the COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic has exacerbated these inequities. In a new blog about D.C. Medicaid funding mental health support by text, Nia West-Bey explores how innovative approaches in youth mental health can potentially transform access to care.
In this blog, Whitney Bunts and Kayla Tawa discuss that to equitably and effectively tackle the youth mental health crisis, Congress must address underlying structural factors—such as racism, poverty, and climate change—that harm young people’s mental health. Young people rightly feel anxious, angry, scared, and sad by climate catastrophes, let alone rising hate crimes, racial violence, economic injustices, and the overall lack of safety in their communities, in this country, and on this planet.
Removing Barriers to Mental Health Care is Essential for Children to Thrive
We cannot fully address the nation’s youth mental health crisis if individuals with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status and children in immigrant families are left out of the solutions. Under current law, immigrants with legal permanent resident (LPR) status must wait five years before being able to access mental health care through critical supports like Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). IDACA recipients are almost entirely barred from access to mental health coverage through Medicaid, CHIP, and Affordable Care Act Marketplace coverage. Explore national and individual state fact sheets that outline the essential mental health barriers that must be removed for children to thrive.
Tackling the AAPI Mental Health Crisis Through Culturally Competent Services
To appropriately address the historical and modern racial trauma inflicted on the AAPI community, our nation needs to address the lack of culturally competent and accessible mental health tools and providers.
Recognizing the unique mental health challenges facing Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) and LBGTQ+ youth, Evokate is a new tool that equips users with knowledge on how to learn, advocate, and organize at the intersection of mental health and social issues for change at the local and state level. CLASP serves as an advisory partner to Evokate, which you can explore at EvokateApp.org
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