This brief identifies factors contributing to poor mental health and substance use outcomes among children during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on groups of children who are particularly at risk and barriers to accessing mental health care. While data has been limited for this population, the brief draws upon the National Survey of Children’s Health, the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, and surveys conducted during the pandemic.

Hosted in collaboration with Mental Health America and the GlobalMentalHealth@Harvard Initiative, this May 11, 2021 webinar focused on Peer Support and Youth Mental Health. In this 60-minute dialogue, Satvik Sethi of Runaway App, Martin Rafferty and Tia Barnes of Youth Era, and Dr. Cindy Liu of Harvard Medical School discussed the current challenges and successes in youth mental health, ways to empower youth, and tools to support them.

This blogpost summarizes the COVID-19 pandemic’s negative effect on mental health, particularly in low-income individuals, evidenced by increasing levels of stress and anxiety. Survey data indicate a rise since 2019 from one to four in 10 Americans who reported symptoms consistent with generalized anxiety disorder or major depressive disorders during the COVID-19 pandemic. The blogpost also refers to the relative decreases in self-reported cases of stress and anxiety with enactment of pandemic-related economic assistance and the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine.

This guide supports parents, rescue workers, and members of the larger community as they help children begin to recover from traumatic events and overcome those experiences. The guide includes the definition of trauma; common responses to trauma among young children (ages 5 and younger), children (ages 6 to 11), and adolescents (ages 12 to 17); and action steps when someone in crisis needs help.

The Brother, You’re on My Mind toolkit provides Omega Psi Phi Fraternity chapters and partners with materials to educate fellow fraternity brothers and community members on depression and stress in African American men. The toolkit can be used by all to plan and implement community education events and strategically build community partnerships to meet initiative goals.

Developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this webpage provides mental health tools and resources for people seeking treatment. It also offers public health and health professionals information about children’s mental health, adult mental health, and coping with a disaster or traumatic event.

This report evaluates the Denver Supportive Housing Social Impact Bond Initiative (Denver SIB), which sought to increase housing stability and reduce jail stays among chronically homeless persons with prior frequent involvement with the criminal justice and emergency health systems. Under Denver SIB, supportive housing was provided through a Housing First approach (which had no preconditions or requirements for participants) and a modified Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) model. ACT is a multidisciplinary team-based approach to deliver supportive services, such as case management, crisis intervention, substance use counseling, mental health treatment, peer support, skills building, and connection to primary care.

The Corporation for Supportive Housing will host a webinar course on August 25, 2021 from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. ET targeting direct service workers, service coordinators, peer specialists, and facilities staff. The course helps participants understand common mental health symptoms and how best to help supportive housing tenants. Course participants will learn how to: identify mental illness symptoms and to support tenants struggling with them, engage these tenants and de-escalate certain situations, create an individualized service plan with tenants, and determine which healthcare system partners to engage to ensure tenants receive needed care. There is a registration fee for this webinar.

Program services, such as health care, nutritious food, housing, early care, and education, are often delivered in silos, creating access barriers for families. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation blogpost presents an interactive map that documents 95 state and local coordinated service approaches nationally. The map is part of the Assessing Models of Coordinated Services project which promotes children’s healthy development.

This Annie E. Casey Foundation annual publication provides data on child well-being among states and in multiyear comparisons from 2010 to 2019. Data in this review covers economic well-being, education, health, and family and community, including state rankings for these categories. There is also a separate section on how families fared during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.