Dr Steven Adelsheim Explains How Community Partnerships Can Support Young Patients With Mental Illness

It’s crucial to have support from the numerous community settings that young people interact with so that they can feel understood and better manage their mental illness, according to Steven Adelsheim, MD, clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine.

Transcript

How do community behavioral health partnerships at all levels help to detect mental health issues and improve outcomes?

Community mental health partnerships are very important because as we would discuss, young people are in multiple settings—whether it’s involved with a sports team and a coach, or someone else at school, or involved with a religious entity or their church, or other setting, helping the people in those community settings understand the issues of young people, what the early warning signs might be, are very important.

And also with that, in terms of building support, lowering stress levels becomes very important, not only in terms of family—child communication, but learning how to work within a school setting to lower stress levels through allowing a young person to leave the classroom if they need to, more time with tests, maybe cutting back on some of the courses that a person is taking, are important. Being able to have the support of a youth network at a church or some other community setting, but really being able to reach out and have that support in the multiple community networks for young people are critical to lowering stress, relieving symptoms, and helping that young person feel supported and maintaining their self-esteem.