Healthy Body -- Healthy Mind

The author\u27s introduction to this issue of Focal Point, which focuses on the interrelationship of mind and body, and its impact for social work with youth

How Mental Health Challenges Impact the Sexual and Relational Health of Young Adults

Sexual behavior is a normative aspect of young adulthood—90% of young adults have had vaginal intercourse and/or oral sex before the age of 30.1 Similarly, engaging in romantic and/or intimate relationships is seen as an essential developmental task of young adulthood. However, little is known about the sexual and romantic relationships of young adults with serious mental health conditions (SMHC), despite the fact that there is evidence that this population is disproportionately affected by poor sexual health. This article will outline what is known about the sexual and romantic relationships of young adults with SMHC and highlight the importance of engaging in conversations about sexual and romantic relationships with young adults experiencing mental health challenges

Treating Young People with Co-Occurring Disorders: What Works?

Youth with substance use disorders often also face mental health challenges. Two recent studies analyzed two different treatment approaches for co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders: (1) a standardized therapy approach and (2) 12-step support groups, as modalities for effectively treating and continuing positive outcomes for young people with co-occurring mental health and substance use issues. The findings from these studies are summarized below

Mapping the Participatory Process

This presentation explores the use of Practice-Based Evidence methodologies to support social work with Native American youth. It is based on a five-year collaborative effort between the Native American Youth and Family Center, National Indian Child Welfare Association, and the Research and Training Center on Family Support and Children\u27s Mental Health. The researchers aims were to develop strategies for documenting the effectiveness of services, and to develop a process for conducting evaluations based on known outcomes of community based programs

Healthy Relationships

The author\u27s introduction to this issue of Focal Point, focused on healthy relationships. Offers background information and brief synopses of the articles contained in this issue

Is Supported Employment Effective for Youth and Young Adults?

Supported Employment (SE) is an evidence-based practice to assist people with disabilities in finding and maintaining employment. The types of services provided by SE include job coaching and training, resume development, and transportation. More recently, proof of the effectiveness of this approach for those with mental health challenges has been documented.1 The purpose of this research was to determine whether SE proved to be effective among persons with mental health challenges across different age groups

“You’d Be Depressed Too”: Treatment Acceptability among Mothers who are Economically Disadvantaged

Although mothers who are economically disadvantaged have high rates of emotional distress, the rate of their use of mental health services is relatively low. What accounts for this underutilization of care? Although there is evidence that insurance coverage and access to care account for some of this disparity, barriers to mental health services reach beyond basic access issues. When considering why some choose to seek mental health care while others do not, it is important to consider treatment acceptability among low-income mothers. Treatment acceptability is the extent to which recipients of care perceive that care as “reasonable, justified, fair, and palatable” In other words, it is not enough to make care accessible; it also has to be acceptable, or relevant to the consumer. And the more consumers view treatment as relevant or important, the more likely they are to work to overcome other barriers to seek mental health care. After all, mothers are more likely to overcome obstacles in order to get the care needed for their children than they are to get care for themselves. Therefore, other factors must play a role in order to explain why low-income mothers do not get care for their own mental health

The Sexual Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Youth

Although persons of different sexual and gender orientations often get grouped together under the term “LGBTQ” (for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning), it is important to distinguish between subpopulations based on sexual vs. gender orientation. A person’s sexual orientation is the gender to which a person is emotionally, romantically, and sexually attracted. Gender identity is how a person self-identifies as a particular gender regardless of biological sex characteristics. “Transgender” describes persons who are born a certain sex, but identify with, and consequently wish to live as, a different gender than the sex their anatomy dictates. According to data from the 2009 Oregon Healthy Teens survey, 5% of 11th graders identify as being lesbian, gay, or bisexual, and another 2.3% report being “unsure” of their sexual orientation (i.e., questioning); almost 10% of female and 5% of male 11th graders report same-sex sexual experiences. The prevalence of transgender or gender non-conforming youth is unknown. Health disparities among LGBTQ persons have received more public health attention in recent years. The Healthy People 2020 objectives, which set the federal government’s national goals for health, includes a goal to “improve the health, safety, and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals.”2 In 2011, the Institute of Medicine released a consensus report that highlights the health status of persons of different sexual and gender orientations.3 However, both of these initiatives acknowledge the lack of data to inform this topic, especially regarding the health of transgender persons

Education & Employment

The author provides an introduction to this issue of Focal Point, which focuses on the problems faced by youth with mental health challenges when attempting to choose a career. She also provides brief overviews of the articles contained in this issue, and recounts her own experiences as she embarked on her career

Supporting Transition-Aged Youth: One State\u27s Efforts

Young adults need specialized services as they age out of children’s mental health care and into adult services. Starting in 1997, Connecticut began to address this need by creating a Young Adult Services (YAS) program, designed to assist those over 18 who had moderate to severe symptoms of mental illness. YAS provides comprehensive service delivery that includes clinical, residential, case management, vocational, and social rehabilitation supports. Major principles that guide the YAS program include: (1) services must be comprehensive and integrated—focusing on one issue without supporting a young adult in other aspects of his or her life is ineffective; (2) it is challenging, yet essential, to facilitate young adults’ transitions from highly supervised and structured programs into community settings in which they experience higher degrees of autonomy, and; (3) given the traumas experienced by many of these young adults, it is particularly important to provide them with opportunities to form secure attachments; therefore, YAS programs should not reject or remove clients. The clients served by YAS have aged out of institutional settings and have complex needs: 95% have known histories of severe and sustained abuse, 95% have been in foster and/or residential care, half have diagnosed learning disabilities, and many have been incarcerated. The purpose of this study was to identify aspects of the YAS program related to positive psychological functioning and well-being in its young adult clients