Stress has become a common experience in the daily lives of many students. The pressure of tests, quizzes, homework, and social stressors can be overwhelming, leading to various mental health issues.
Unfortunately, schools in SLO County have been facing a shortage of mental health specialists, which has exacerbated the problem.
To address this issue, the Center for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CCAMH) provides accessible and necessary mental health care to students in the county. Although the non-profit organization is only a few months old, it has already gained recognition and has an advisory board of students from various schools, including AGHS.
“Our main goal is to provide mental health care for teens and adolescents and younger but we haven’t gotten there yet,” Nathaniel McDonald (‘25) said. “At [AGHS], we haven’t done anything yet because the non-profit is only a couple of months old, but we are planning on doing a survey and some research here as soon as we can to understand what we need to do at our schools.”
The youth advisory board includes AGHS youth students such as Tristan Bird, Kinsie Colbourn, Emme Landers, Janeen Simon, and Nathaniel McDonald. Working with kids over the SLO county schools, they work to highlight the issues that need to be addressed, particularly those related to mental health.
Identifying the areas that need improvement and suggesting ways to implement them, CCAMH’s ultimate goal is to provide mental health care for teens, adolescents, and younger children in the county, and with the support of the community, they hope to achieve that goal soon.
“I’m on an advisory board with many other people from this school and other high schools. We say what issues need to be covered and talked about, more specifically the mental health stuff that needs to be fixed,” Mcdonald said. “We point out the issues for everyone else to talk about ways it can be implemented.”
Therapists and psychiatrists around the Central Coast are filled with present clients. The amount of money that is required will be an issue, leading people not to seek out the help they need.
“We just don’t have a lot [of help], that’s the biggest thing, there aren’t a lot of therapists that are not super expensive. That’s a huge issue, there’s a huge price tag with going to therapy. We only have a few local psychiatrists that are taking new patients,” McDonald said.
“The [psychiatrists] that we do have are always booked which is difficult to deal with, and they’re all in SLO and nothing here specifically, kinda the central coast is a dead zone,” McDonald added.
Money can also be tight for CCAMH, which is why they applied for the Morgan Stanley Grant. Morgan Stanley is a mental health organization that works to push the normality of reaching out for help to combat stress issues. This grant will allow an organization to gain publicity and expand its sources while awarding a prize of 100,000 dollars.
CCAMH is in the final stages of the Morgan Stanley Grants filtering process, revising its presentations and representations.
“We applied for the Morgan Stanley grant before, but we got rejected, I think twice, now that we got shortlisted, we’re currently revising our program proposal for the grant,” Janeen Simon (‘24) said.
With the help of yet-to-be-licensed psychiatrists and therapists needing hours, CCAMH can use the money to pay for the licensed professionals and supply the money for other necessities to keep their goal to provide the central coast with qualified help in good running condition.
“A lot of the psychiatrists we are trying to hire are trainees who need hours before they can become fully licensed therapists. We can just do it for free and we can give them hours. They are all qualified, they just don’t have a therapy license,” McDonald said.
If CCAMH wins the Morgan Stanley Grant, they will be able to establish their treatment center and provide the necessary resources to kids and teens in schools around the central coast.
