Peer Support for Youth with Mental Health Issues

Below is an announcement from the Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.  This is an opportunity for youth to talk about their needs when it comes to support from someone who’s been through similar experiences.  If you apply for this, please let them know you found out from Youth Outreach Union!

Begin within,

Michael

“Children broken by the world become the adults most likely to change it,”

~Frank Warren, founder of Post Secret

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The Bureau of Children’s Behavioral Health Services, Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services is planning a focus group for youth who are between the ages of 14 and 17 and who are (or recently have) received services from the public mental health system.  The purpose of the focus group is to get input from these youth about what they think would be an “ideal” mental health service delivery system.  This input is sought as the Bureau is developing plans for extending the provision of peer support services to this group. This would entail one full day of discussion in late March or early April and will tentatively be held in Mechanicsburg, PA.

In addition, a follow-up web-based discussion will be scheduled to solicit input from persons in this age group who are unable to make the group meeting.  Further information will be disseminated to the CASSP coordinators shortly.  If you are interested in further information please contact Doris Arena (darena@state.pa.us) or Ann Litzelman (c-alitzelm@state.pa.us) .

PA Youth Leadership Newsletter

Hey all,

We will be adding a section to the website dedicated to the Pa Youth Leadership Newsletter.

The newsletter is written by Brian Satterfield.  Brian is a Youth Leader and Advocate serving on the advisory board for the Youth and Family Training Institute.  The YFTI is responsible for implementing “Hi-Fidelity Wraparound” in Pennsylvania, and their advisory board is made up of equal parts youth, family members, and professionals. 

Recently, the YFTI and Pennsylvania received a grant from the federal government to start a System of Care in Pennsylvania.  YFTI is the agency implementing this grant as well.  As a result of the grant, Pennsylvania has begun to explore options for Pennsylvania’s Youth Leadership opportunities.  As a youth leader for YFTI, Brian compiles a newsletter to update youth on what’s going on in these areas.

The newsletter will be posted as they are released, titled by date so that you can stay in the know without a milion e-mails.

“Children broken by the world become the adults most likely to change it,”

~Frank Warren, founder of Post Secret

Attitudes on Satisfaction and Experience of Sex Education among Young People

I just got this emailed to me, and thought that this sounded like an exciting project! It is about Youth and Sex Ed- it is only 10 questions long, and takes 3-5 minutes to complete, AND it is a project by a Youth!

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Greetings!
I am a West Chester University student, and I want to let you know about a cool new health project that I am doing with young people. For my class project, I am doing a survey with young people, ages 18 and older, on sex education in high schools. The survey is due next Friday, on February 26, 2010, and I hope you can participate!

This survey will look at how much sex education young people with disabilities get while they are in high school, and will help me understand how young people feel about the sex education they receive.

Please remember, you must be 18 or older to participate in this survey. Anyone under the age of 18 is not allowed to participate in this survey. Participation in this survey is on a volunteer-basis. This means that only you decide whether or not you want to take the survey. Your answers to the survey questions will be kept secret and anonymous. This means that there will be no way for me or anyone else to know who you are or how you answered any of the questions on the survey.

If you take the survey and submit your answers, this means that you have given your consent, or permission, to be included in the survey. If any questions on the survey make you feel uncomfortable, you can skip them. You can also stop taking the survey at any time without any consequences.

Directions:

The survey is 10 questions long. If you are age 18 or older, and you would like to participate, please click the following link, which will take you right to the survey:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RKMX2HX

If you have any problem clicking the link, please copy and paste it into your internet web browser page and the survey should open. Once you have answered the survey questions, hit the button that says “done” to be finished. Please remember to take the survey by Friday, February 26th.

Thank you so much for your time!

Sincerely,

Emily Kronenberger

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Pa Youth Leadership Newsletter-February 4, 2010

Hello Everyone,
 
     Today I bring you a lot of news and notes from the past two weeks about new System of Care developments, as well as information regarding future opportunities for Youth Leadership in PA.  Let’s start this letter off quickly by jumping right on in.
 
FACEBOOK GROUP
     As a way to give everyone a different option for receiving news about Youth Leadership, I have created a facebook group that is available for everyone to join.  The hope is that this facebook group will allow an easier way to discuss recent updates with other youth receiving them as well as helping to increase the understanding of the Systems of Care Grant for all of you.  It is currently a closed group (meaning I have to approve requests to join), only for the reason of limiting discussions to youth already familiar and working with the SoC grant.  It’s currently designed simply as another way to communicate information and not to greatly increase youth outreach, but it may serve as a start to such a movement.  It’s important to note that the group is not officially associated with the grant or with the Youth and Family Training Institute.
     To join the group, search for the group name: PA SoC Youth Leadership.  Then just send a request to join.
     (Note: As I’ve just created the group, content for it will be up hopefully throughout the next few days, but feel free to join now.  I’ll have a section for ideas and plans for the future ready.)
 
STATE LEADERSHIP TEAM & PROJECT DIRECTOR UPDATE
     The three youth positions on the State Leadership Team will very soon be finalized, so expect an announcement about who they are to be coming within the next week or two.  Once the entire team is formed, expect the Systems of Care Grant to start really taking off.  Alongside of that, the Project Director position has been narrowed down from 47 applicants to 8, and interviews of those 8 took place earlier this week by a team of 2 youth, 3 family members, and 4 professionals.  This team will narrow the choice down to 3 people, and the final decision will be made by the State Leadership Team.
 
SYSTEMS OF CARE CONFERENCE IN D.C.
     Next week there will be a conference in Washington D.C. for the new communities in Systems of Care (PA of course being one of them).  A team of 10-12 people from PA will be heading down for the three day event to receive advice and talk about the current state of the SoC Grant with professionals in Systems of Care from all around the country (known as the TA Partnership).  The youth representatives on the team of 10-12 people will be Paige Costa (Youth Support Partner, Montgomery County) and myself.  We’ll be gathering as much information as possible to relay back to all of you, especially in regards to developing youth voice throughout the state.  It should be a very beneficial and educational experience for all of us involved with the conference, but again, our job as youth will be taking in as much knowledge as possible for the purpose of helping all of us youth continue to successfully move forward with this initiative.
 
SCHEDULING ANOTHER CONFERENCE CALL
     As my last e-mail mentioned, the previous conference call did not go as planned.  I asked for responses from a lot of you about how you felt these e-mails were working, and I want to thank each and every one of you who responded to me.  You all gave me great feedback about how you feel everything is working out so far.  All of you still expressed interest in getting another conference call scheduled (which I definitely agree with), and so I would once again like to ask all of you for what times you will be available to make the call.  I’d like it to be sometime during the week of February 15th, so keep that in mind when letting me know what times you can attend.  So please send me what times work best for you by the end of next week, and I will get back to all of you when a time is set.
     On a side note, if you would like me to contact you by phone the day of as a reminder for the conference call, let me know and send me your phone number and I will be sure to send a text/give a call an hour or so beforehand.  This will go alongside sending an e-mail reminder this time the night before the call takes place.
 
FUTURE OF THE PA YOUTH LEADERSHIP NEWSLETTER
     Once again, I must thank all of you for your great feedback over the last few weeks after the last e-mail I sent out.  I heard a few problems regarding the amount of e-mails some of you receive, so I’ve already requested that the majority of information that needs to get out be sent through myself first.  This way, I can condense all of the updates happening over the course of the week and give all of you everything you need to know in one e-mail rather than flooding your e-mail box if things get out of hand.  Along those lines, I believe that I will start sending these newsletters out on a weekly basis.  I’ve yet to decide on what day I will always be sending them out (either Thursday or Friday, I will let you know), but hopefully this system will allow all of you to know when you will be receiving updates from me and to check your inbox accordingly.
 
     Thank you all once again for your participation with this Youth Leadership Initiative.  I know it can sometimes be confusing as well as overwhelming.  I’m doing what I can to make this stuff youth friendly, but it’s not exactly an easy thing to do.  The more suggestions you all have the better (and hopefully the facebook group can open up some of this discussion), so please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions/complaints you may be having.  Until next time, live long and prosper.

Brian Satterfield
Youth Advocate
Bachelor of Liberal Arts in Psychology (philosophy minor), Temple University
484-680-0068
flyerfan0028@hotmail.com

Pa Youth Leadership Newsletter-1/15/2010

Hello Everyone,
     I have a few updates for you all today regarding Youth Leadership in PA.  The time for the conference I referenced in the previous e-mail has been set, a reminder for state leadership team applications will be discussed, and finally some news regarding information I will be sending out next week.
 
CONFERENCE CALL:
     First off, thank you to those of you who responded to my previous e-mail with times you will be available for a conference call to take place.  We’ve set up the call for next Friday, January 22nd, at 11:00 am.  I will be sending out the phone number to call next week, so be on the lookout for that e-mail.  If you will be able to make that time, please let me know so that we can have some idea of how many of you will participating.  Once again, the reasons for the call are to discuss the following:
 
-The discussion of a need for further youth meetings to develop the role of youth leadership in the Systems of Care Grant
-The issues that would need to be addressed in any future youth meetings
-Establishing a pipeline network for contacting youth who would like to participate in the various youth roles available within the SoC grant as well as youth available for the interviewing process of the SoC team (both elaborated more on below)
-Figuring out when the project directors of all the youth groups should become more involved with the youth leadership process
-Addressing any questions/concerns you all still have about this entire PA youth leadership process
 
STATE LEADERSHIP APPLICATION REMINDER:
     The deadline for the state leadership team applications is next Tuesday, January 19th.  If you are interested in the position, make sure you send everything in by that time.  Once again, you may e-mail myself or Laurie Jones (jonelh@upmc.edu) if you have any questions.
 
SYSTEMS OF CARE SELF-ASSESSMENT:
     Next week there will be a self-assessment test (accompanied by a webinar session to explain it further) that the Youth and Family Training Institute would like everyone who has been involved with the Systems of Care grant up until this point to complete.  Once either Stan or Laurie have the information and the link to where you can complete it, I will be forwarding it to all of you.  I don’t have all the details right now, but look for an e-mail from me regarding this early next week that will hopefully explain it a lot more.
 
     As always, feel free to e-mail me any questions/concerns you may have about pretty much anything.  The Systems of Care grant is really going to start taking off very soon, so stay vigilant my friends (and I’ll be trying my best not to end up flooding your inbox with e-mails).  Thank you all for your time, and I look forward to speaking with some of you next week.

Brian Satterfield
Youth Advocate
Bachelor of Liberal Arts in Psychology (philosophy minor), Temple University
484-680-0068
flyerfan0028@hotmail.com

Youth Opportunities!

This section will have blogs about opportunites for youth to use their voices.  These are committees, advisory boards, etc.

These will be local and state-wide opportunites.

Seclusion and Restraint Bill Introduced

Back in May I covered The Ed and Labor Hearing on Seclusion and Restraint on my personal blog. This week, there is an update on that front- Chairman Miller, Representative McMorris Rodgers and Senator Dodd introduced Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act (H.R. 4247) and Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act (S.2860). You can watch the press conference that was held on this here (WMV) or read the Press Release.

Mental Health

This is our first post to open up the Mental Health portion of the blog.

If you have news or information about youth and mental health that you want to share, go to the Youth Outreach Union website and join as a youth leader.