Greetings, and welcome to this blog! My name is Anna Corona and I work for the Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs as the Program Manager for Child & Adolescent Health (AMCHP). AMCHP is one of several partners that make up the Adolescent and Young Adult National Resource Center collaboration, which is led by the UCSF’s National Adolescent Health Information Center.*
This blog will be a place where you can come to peruse the latest happenings of the Center’s work as well as the latest news and resources related to Adolescent and Young Adult Behavioral Health. Last, but certainly not least, we hope that this can be a space for Title V professionals and their partners to glean perspectives, insights, and ideas as they relate to the posts we share here (please let us know if you’d like to guest write for us! acorona@amchp.org). With each blog post we invite you to respond via Twitter (@DC_AMCHP) with reactions, ideas, and questions. We will plan to post a new entry approximately every two weeks, so keep an eye out for us!
To kick us off, I’d like to pose a question to our readers:
What motivates you to dedicate your time and passion to supporting optimal emotional wellness among adolescents and young adults?
To jump start the discussion, I’ll share AMCHP’s motivations: As an organization committed to the optimal health of women, children, adolescents, and families, the rising rates of major depressive episodes (MDEs) among adolescents (ages 12-17) and young adults (ages 18-25) is troubling. We understand the importance of co-creating environments for and with AYAs that support their emotional well-being to reverse this trend. This co-creation approach is reflected in our most recent strategic plan, where AMCHP prioritizes youth-engaged work to transform the spaces where AYAs seek care, live, study, work, and play.
Let us know your own motivations by tweeting us @DC_AMCHP and including the #ScreenToInterveneForAYAs hashtag.
*The Center is funded by a cooperative agreement with the Maternal and Child Health Bureau of the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration and focuses on improving the health of adolescent and young adults (ages 10-25) by strengthening the capacity of state maternal and child health programs and their clinical partners to address the needs of those populations.
