Pulse Check: Youth Mental Health

Pulse Check: Youth Mental Health Final

Cindy Lopez: Welcome. My name is Cindy Lopez, the host of this CHC podcast, Voices of Compassion. We hope you find a little courage, feel connected and experience compassion every time you listen.

In this Voices of Compassion episode, we talk with CHC experts Dr. Ramsey Khasho, Chief Clinical Officer, and Dr. Pardis Khosravi, Clinical Director, both licensed psychologists. They help us take a clear-eyed look at the real state of teen mental health in 2025. Moving beyond sensationalized headlines, we’ll discuss recent data, showing promising developments as well as still concerning trends. You’ll hear about what we are seeing in our work at CHC and help parents and caregivers understand how they can support their kids. This episode provides the nuanced understanding you need to navigate the complex reality of adolescent wellbeing today. So, join us for a conversation that goes beyond simplified narratives to deliver practical insights for helping teens thrive in challenging times.

Welcome, Dr. Khasho and Dr. Khosravi. I’m wondering before we get started, if you could just share a little bit more about yourselves with our listeners.

Ramsey Khasho, PsyD: Hi everyone. I’m Dr. Ramsey Khasho. I am a licensed clinical psychologist here in the state of California, and I’m also the Chief Clinical Officer at Children’s Health Council. I also have three kids of my own. So this topic is very important to me and I have lived experience in this space. Thank you for having me.

Pardis Khosravi, PsyD: And I am Dr. Pardis Khosravi. I am also a licensed clinical psychologist, and I’m the Clinical Director here at CHC and clinically I have specialized in psychological assessment and treatment of youth, adolescents, young adults, and have worked across schools, community mental health, residential treatment, which has given me a really broad perspective, I think on youth mental health. And I’m super passionate about helping young people and their families understand their strengths and build resilience and thrive. So, I’m really happy to be here talking about this today.

Cindy Lopez: Thank you both for being here today. So, let’s dig into this topic. Youth mental Health seems like it’s in the media almost every day and it feels like it’s been that way for years. So, what’s the data saying today about youth mental health? Like, perhaps where we’re at today versus where we’ve been in the past?

Pardis Khosravi, PsyD: Yeah, unfortunately, the stats don’t look good. So the CDC published data recently that nearly all indicators of poor mental health and suicidal thoughts and behaviors for youth have worsened when you compare 2023 to 2013. So, over the last 10 years, all indicators of mental health have worsened. 

So, a couple key stats: 4 in 10 high school students have experienced depression or persistent feelings of hopelessness – that’s up from 3 in 10 in 2013. In 2023, 2 in 10 students seriously considered attempting suicide, and 1 in 10 actually did attempt suicide again higher than previous years. And we also know that these statistics aren’t the same for all youth across the board. So, for underserved, marginalized populations, these problems are even more pronounced to those groups of kids are at higher risk. So, for example, LGBTQ students and youth of color are more likely than their peers to experience depression, hopelessness, poor mental health, substance use. 

So, just a key stat that really stood out to me is in 2023, we had about 9% of all youth attempt suicide at some point in the last year, but for LGBTQ youth, that was actually 20%, so over double. So, across all of these indicators, youth mental health is looking worse and worse every year, unfortunately.

Ramsey Khasho, PsyD: Yeah, I would just add, Cindy, you’re right, we are seeing it in the media a lot and that is actually a really good thing compared to about 20 years ago where we just didn’t hear enough about mental health and youth mental health. The fact that we are talking about it now, the fact that it’s in the media, is really helping to raise awareness and that greater awareness is leading to decreased stigma, but it is, as Dr. Khosravi mentioned, the stats are sobering. Many of us in the field know that youth mental health actually reached crisis proportions at least a decade prior to the pandemic. And so, for us in the field, this isn’t really anything new. And of course the pandemic had a significant negative impact on mental health and again, also brought greater awareness of issues related to mental health. Specific to what we’re seeing atChildren’s Health Council, post pandemic, we did see a jump in inquiries for services and a significant increase by about 150% where people were really struggling. And that sense has leveled out, but the demand is still strong and the need is still strong.

One area that I think is important to talk a little bit about since the pandemic and since the continued increase in mental health challenges and struggles with youth, we’ve been receiving a lot of inquiries specific to public and private school systems reaching out to us. They are seeing a lot of young people struggling with mental health, in ways that they hadn’t seen before – being dysregulated in the classroom, struggling with completing schoolwork – and educators as they’re not trained in how to manage youth mental health, really are at a loss as to how to deal with the increase in mental health challenges that they’re seeing in schools. And so, that’s an area where we’re seeing a lot of struggle and we’re moving forward with helping the community.

Cindy Lopez: Yeah, that definitely is true in our work and community engagement, too, as we work a lot with schools and hear a lot from educators about what’s going on in the classroom with their students and can be somewhat overwhelming. And, Dr. Khasravi, as you talk about the data, and as you already said, it’s not the best news. So, I’m wondering, as we hear from educators, from parents, from teens themselves, the data and trends are, I’m going to say, seem a little hopeless. And that might be a little strong, but are there reasons for hope?

Pardis Khosravi, PsyD: I’m glad you asked that question because it can seem hopeless. And there are reasons for hope, and I think like Dr. Khasho mentioned, the more we talk about it, the more that we decrease the stigma around mental health, the more that people are able to seek care, the better these things are going to get. 

And so there are actually some indicators that things are getting better for some groups of youth. So, I mentioned that the percentage of high school students who have felt persistently sad or hopeless in the last 12 months has increased over the last 10 years, but in just the last two years, so from the data, so from 2021 to 2023, there’s actually been a 2% decrease. And for girls who have always had kind of the highest rates in this category, that decrease was even greater. It was a decrease of about 4% – so, that’s promising. We’re heading in the right direction and hopefully that trend can continue.

There was also another study that was published recently that said 95% of youth, ages 10 to 24 believe that there’s people in their lives that really care about them. And I think that statistic is just so important because we know that having just one relationship, positive relationship with a trusted adult, is hugely protective for a young person’s mental health. And so to have 95% of youth feel like they have people in their lives who care about them is super important and super protective and contributes to resiliency. 76% of kids said they felt a sense of belonging within a group, so within, like, a friend group, within their school and 83% said they’re optimistic about the future. So, while there’s a lot of statistics that are sobering it’s not all doom and gloom. You know, there are reasons for hope. There’s a lot of kids out there who are feeling this sense of belonging, the sense of optimism and at the same time, I think far too many young people are struggling with mental health. And so I think it’s important that we keep talking about it and we keep talking about what we can do about it.

Cindy Lopez: Yeah, that’s really good news. And I think there definitely are pockets of and communities that are experiencing a harder time, as you mentioned. And I’m really glad to hear that we’re hearing from students themselves that this greater sense of belonging or feeling more optimistic about their future.

Ramsey Khasho, PsyD: Yeah, as I mentioned earlier, the pandemic really propelled the issue of mental health and wellness to the forefront. It was a time in our lives where none of us could really escape, having to deal with our own mental wellness because we were all impacted. And, I would say since that time, the hope lies in the fact that there is a general greater awareness of mental health and mental wellness than ever before. We also have this really incredible generation coming upon us, the millennial generation and the Gen Z generation. These are young people who are really fierce advocates of mental wellness, and mental health, and they’re truly dismantling the historical stigma around mental illness. And they’re doing an incredible job ensuring that we tackle issues related to mental health and wellness and not tolerate any shame or stigma related to it. So, I’m really seeing a shift that’s happening culturally with this next generation.

You know, for example, here at CHC, we’re hosting a teen panel to really elevate the voices of young people to talk to the adults in their lives about what teen mental health looks like today, what they need from the community, from adults to help them with their mental wellbeing. I’m also encouraged to see people really partnering with one another, stakeholders, schools, clinics, really coming together and working collaboratively on addressing youth mental health in new and creative ways. So, the fact that the systems are aware and they’re working together to really help young people and improve their mental wellbeing is a really positive thing to note.

Cindy Lopez: Yeah, I am so impressed with the teens that we have connected with over the years. I think that idea that you just talked about Ramsey, about millennials and Gen Z, like being very passionate about mental health and being able to talk about it is a big thing, and reducing that stigma around teens, even just talking to each other. As we think about youth mental health, one of the things that comes to mind is typically suicide. What are the trends related to youth suicide today?

Ramsey Khasho, PsyD: Yeah. Look, I know listeners today, it’s a topic that people really just don’t want to talk about. It’s easier to avoid, it’s too painful to think about. And, in order to reduce the stigma and in order to really understand what’s happening, we must talk about suicide and in particular, youth suicide. What we know from the CDC is that suicide is the second leading cause of death for people ages 10 to 14 and 25 to 34. When you look at the young adult population, about 18 to 25, about almost 14% of that population have serious thoughts of suicide just in the last year. Drilling into the high school population, we have about 22% reported having seriously considered suicide in the past year. If you think about that, that’s pretty staggering. That’s almost a quarter of young people in high school who’ve reported seriously considering suicide. The percentage, of course, is higher for females at about 30%. And the LGBT+ community at a staggering 45%. You know, 10% of high school students attempted suicide in the past year. And again, these numbers are higher for females and black teens and the LGBTQ community. And about 16% of suicidal high school students actually made suicide plans over the last year. So, when we look at most measures of suicidality, we’ve seen increases, year over year with one exception, which I’ll get to, but you know, the most important thing, and we see this across the board with mental health as significant disparities in the prevalence of suicidality in minority groups, such as youth of color and tribal communities and the LGBTQ plus communities and people with disabilities. And it’s really important for us to pay close attention to these populations and think critically when we think about prevention efforts to really focus on those groups as well.

There is a positive sign that between the years of 2021 and 2022, there was a decline in suicidal rates for people ages 10 to 14 and 15 to 24, with rates falling about 18 to 9% respectively. That’s data from the CDC. Some people look at that as, you know, just a year in which the numbers were off. I actually lean into looking at that as a hopeful sign that our interventions and that our increased awareness is really making an impact, even if it isn’t fully sustained, that the hope is that over time we will see those numbers coming down again.

Cindy Lopez: So yeah, it’s interesting to hear, Dr. Khasho, that there was a decline in suicide rates and that is hopeful. And as we think about suicide in youth and what’s happening, I think an important part of prevention is talking about it. And for our listeners, you want to make sure that you know about some past episodes where we talk about teen suicide. We talked about how to talk with your teens about mental health, about communicating with your teens. So, those are a couple ways our listeners can learn a little bit more about what they can actually do and talk about with their kids.

Ramsey Khasho, PsyD: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, you’re right, Cindy. And I want to make sure that as we see these glimmers of hope, it’s important that we continue to have conversations about youth and suicide. It’s important that parents know the signs and are able to have direct conversations with young people about it. We need to also make sure that we get young people who are experiencing suicidality into the right level of care. Sometimes that’s outpatient services. Sometimes that’s an intensive outpatient program such as the RISE IOP that we have at CHC, which is a more intensive program to help young people who are experiencing suicidality and what we call non-suicidal self-injury, which are things like cutting behaviors. These are young people who are really struggling with some mental health issues and need more intensive and focused evidence-based treatment. And we find that the success rate is really high when we really get those young people into those interventions and get them the right treatment. They find a life worth living again, and they are able to learn new, healthy coping strategies, and they are able to finally take suicide and self-harming behaviors off the table, so that they can really live a fulfilling, successful life.

Pardis Khosravi, PsyD: Dr. Khasho, what you’re mentioning about the decrease in suicide rates in the last couple years is coupled with some interesting data. I saw that over the same period of time, emergency room visits for youth related to suicidality and self-harm actually increased. And so like you, I lean into this glimmer of hope. I don’t think it’s a fluke. I think it’s real. And what that tells me is we are talking about it more. We’re decreasing stigma. Youth are getting to care, like they’re sharing what they’re experiencing and they’re getting connected to care. And so, that’s resulting in lower suicide rates, which is exactly what we want. And so, I think the more that we can continue to talk about it, de-stigmatize mental health and get youth connected to high quality care that we know works, the better off our youth are going to be.

Mike Navarrete: CHC’s Voices of Compassion podcast is made possible by the generosity of people like you. To learn more about supporting CHC, go to chconline.org/donate. Also make sure to follow us on social media for more inspiring and educational content from CHC.

Cindy Lopez: Dr. Khasho mentioned our intensive outpatient program, called RISE, that we do here at CHC; you can find out more about that at chconline.org, if that’s a service that you need or that your teen needs. 

So, as we think about reducing the stigma and teens talking more and more to each other for sure and hopefully parents and caregivers talking more and more with their teens too. Let’s discuss. There definitely are barriers to kids getting help and we want to reduce those as much as possible. So, let’s talk about what those barriers are first.

Pardis Khosravi, PsyD: Yeah, so in 2023, nearly one in three teens, so about 32% received mental health treatment in the United States, which means that over two thirds didn’t. And that is just such a sobering statistic. And so a lot of groups have looked into, well, why is that? And so Mental Health America did a study on this. And so they surveyed youth on what is the barrier to accessing care. And they said a few different things. One was this belief that they should be able to handle it on their own. One was stigma and actually it’s interesting because we’ve been talking a lot about how the more we talk about youth mental health, the more destigmatized it gets. And where I think that stigma is actually coming from is we have a generation of youth who are far more open about mental health challenges and seeing a therapist. And the stigma often is actually their parents, in that generation. And so students who are saying, like, I want to get therapy, I want to be in treatment, and parents are more reluctant. So stigma is still showing up as a barrier to care, but in a slightly different way than I think in generations past. And then knowledge of mental health and mental health services. So, things like not knowing how or where to get treatment, being worried that their information that they share is not going to be kept private, right? So, not understanding kind of the confidentiality piece of mental health treatment. You know, perceived effectiveness of therapy, believing that therapy is not helpful or can’t be helpful. So, these are all the things that youth reported as the things that were stopping them from getting connected to care. You know, there’s also logistical barriers, cost, lack of time. We have a generation of very overscheduled kids who have all kinds of afterschool extracurricular activities, things that they’re doing, and so to schedule therapy into that is hard. Transportation, there’s just all kinds of logistical barriers, and the availability of services and providers. I actually saw this statistic that in California there are 240 individuals for every one mental health provider. And if you think that for a mental health provider, a full caseload is about 20 to 25 clients, typically, that’s a mismatch. And so, you know, also the availability of services, can definitely be a barrier to care as well.

Ramsey Khasho, PsyD: We would be remiss not to address what we are seeing, and what I can say I’m personally experiencing as a parent is the inordinate amount of stress that parents are carrying these days in this new world. The US Surgeon General in 2024 put out an advisory on the mental health and wellbeing of parents suggesting that parents are really, really struggling and that is also playing into access. So, you know what the 2023 data suggests is that 33% of parents report high levels of stress in the past month as compared to 20% of other adults, and 48% of parents say that most days their stress is completely overwhelming compared to about 26% among other adults. It’s almost half of parents who are saying that their stress is completely overwhelming and are struggling with coping. And so, we have to really think critically about how is that impacting their ability to support young people and just supporting them as parents and also when they need higher levels of care or they need support. How is that overwhelm interfering in that as well? And so, we just have to acknowledge that parents are under a tremendous amount of stress as well and need the help and support from us as much as young people do. 

And one of the things that I really love about CHC is because we know in order to do good work with young people, we have to work within the system, we have to work with parents. And so we know that parents are struggling. We offer parent coaching to help provide them the support that they need and to really help them to figure out ways to take better care of themselves and give them tools and strategies to help support their child or children who are struggling as well.

Cindy Lopez: Yeah, and if you’re interested in finding out more about parent coaching, you can also find that at chconline.org. Also, just hearing both of you talk about stigma and the fact that teens are talking more, they’re much more open themselves about mental health and talking about it, and the idea that the parents might be having a little bit harder time doing that. I’m also thinking about populations and cultural backgrounds that make it harder for families to talk about mental health, much less, you know, really deal with it. For our listeners, we do have a couple of episodes you might want to look at. One is mental health in the Asian American community and then we also did a Spanish episode, fully in Spanish, about anxiety. So those are just a couple more resources for those who are listening.

So, as we think about youth mental health, we’ve talked a lot about the data. We’ve talked about stigma. We’ve talked about some glimmers of hope. Talk a little bit about what is contributing to youth mental health these days.

Pardis Khosravi, PsyD: So many things, Cindy. I think our kids these days have to grapple with so many stressors. Just to name a few, like climate change, gun violence, rising income inequality and economic instability and this constant barrage of news, right? Like, all of these things are going on and we are more connected than ever. And so teens have smartphones. They are connected with the news all the time. And so we have young people who are constantly worrying about things that frankly young people shouldn’t be worrying about. Things that you and I were not worrying about at the age of 10 or 16, you know, because we didn’t have devices that constantly connected us with what was going on in the world. And so they’re thinking about things like, am I safe at school? Is the planet going to be habitable when I am older? You know, like these are the things that they’re grappling with. There’s also the COVID-19 pandemic that has had lasting impact on youth. There’s increasing academic pressure. I actually read some interesting research recently that an excessive pressure to excel is one of the top contributors to poor mental health outcomes for youth – that is just right behind poverty and racial discrimination – that is the excessive pressure to excel. And so we have youth who are more overscheduled than ever who are experiencing more pressure to do well and to do more. And so, correlated, we’ve actually seen this huge exponential increase in perfectionism in youth, which contributes to anxiety and depression and suicidal thoughts and behaviors. So from 1989 to 2017, there was a 33% increase in what is termed in the research ‘socially prescribed perfectionism,’ which is this idea or this perception that other people expect you to be perfect and you have to meet that demand to get their approval. And so teens more and more are feeling this pressure to excel, and they’re also feeling like in order to be accepted and approved of or cared about or loved, I have to be perfect. And so they are driven by this fear of failure. Their self-worth is often tied to accomplishment. And so when they accomplish something, instead of feeling pride or joy, they actually just feel relief like, whew, like I didn’t fail this one. Onto the next thing, right? And so, you can see how that would lead to really high rates of anxiety, of depression, of substance use, low self-esteem.

And so you have all of these things kind of happening at once, working together, right? We have the growing use of digital media and social media, which is not all negative. I think it’s a double-edged sword. A lot of kids find a lot of support and community in online spaces. And there’s also a lot of hateful content and other, you know, cyber bullying and other things that happen in online spaces that are negative for mental health. And so, I think what happens in combination is you have this race to be perfect, to be the best. Your peers become your competition instead of your support. And then this leads to loneliness in combination with social media, right? You’re also constantly comparing yourself to other people. And so, youth are feeling more and more lonely. And we know that loneliness and social isolation significantly increases the risk of depression, of anxiety, of suicidality. And so there’s just a lot, there’s a lot going on that is contributing to this picture. And then the last thing I’ll add is racism and discrimination also is a big factor for youth mental health. The CDC reported that in 2023, almost a third of students reported that they had experienced racism in school. And we know that that links to higher incidents of depression, anxiety, and trauma.

Cindy Lopez: So my experience has been in education for almost 40 years and seeing the change that has occurred also in education and schools and the academic demands that students are facing today are just so much more intense. And that drive for perfectionism, I can totally relate to all of that. I’m wondering, talking about all these things again, like, let’s bring it back, like what is being done, maybe we can talk about what CHC is doing and then go beyond that.

Ramsey Khasho, PsyD: Yeah, Cindy, it’s a really great question. You know, along with all these statistics, it’s important to talk about what we are doing and what we need to do as a community to really address youth mental health. I mean, at CHC, our entire mission is really fully grounded in providing quality mental health services and learning support services to young people. And much of that is really around the issue of accessibility. So, how do we provide more services and get more young people in the door? And so relative to accessibility, we’re all about increasing our staff to meet the needs and the demands of youth in the community. And it’s actually not an easy thing to do, particularly in the state of California. And what we’re seeing nationally are behavioral health workforce shortages that we’re having to grapple with. We need more people entering the field to provide the services that are needed for young people, but that’s one thing that we are doing to retain and recruit really excellent clinicians to provide the needed services to our community.

We’re also engaging in realizing that really it truly takes a village and that none of us can do this work on our own. So we’re really investing in partnerships and outreach with multiple stakeholders in the community. So we’re working through our community engagement efforts, working very closely with local, private and public schools. We’re working with other clinics, for example. We have some really nice partnerships relative to our programs ESPA and RISE through Stanford Children’s Health. And really when we work collaboratively with these other entities, we’re creating a network of care so that ensures that young people aren’t falling through the cracks relative to their mental health.

The other thing that we’ve been talking about and has been a theme of our conversation is really the disproportionate impact of mental health youth to minoritized populations and one of the areas where we are mission-driven is creating equitable access to care. So, we are extending our services in working in traditionally under-resourced communities, local communities such as East Palo Alto and areas of San Jose to work with families who otherwise wouldn’t be able to receive the mental health care and services that they need.

Also at the state level, I’m really encouraged by the state of California recently the state has initiated what’s called the California Youth Behavioral Health Initiative, in which there is a large multimillion dollar investment in youth mental health, recognizing that there is a public health crisis happening in our state and across the country and the goal is investing in ways to address mental health at the system level. So, for example, they are moving forward with this program called school-linked services, where they’re investing in taking mental health services to where kids are at and that is schools. And ensuring that schools can be the vessel where young people can be referred directly to mental health services, either on campus or out in the community without things like insurance or finances being a barrier to those referrals. And so they’re currently in the pilot phase of launching this new school-linked services. So, you know, CHC is doing a lot, the state is doing a lot. There’s a lot of people making investments, understanding the importance of youth mental health and trying to combat ways to address youth mental health in our communities.

Cindy Lopez: So, you’ve given us all a lot to think about today, a lot of data and trends and trying to understand what’s going on with our youth around mental health and suicide. For our listeners, I’m sure they’re thinking, well, I want to do something. What can I do? So, what can parents or caregivers do to support their youth around mental health and knowing that they can do something, I think brings a level of hopefulness and empowerment that I think is important to this conversation.

Ramsey Khasho, PsyD: Yeah, I would say that with parents and caregivers, it really starts with prevention and education. You know, as parents, we do everything in our power to really set our children up for success. We talk to them about the importance of education. We talk to them about how to move from dependence to independence and autonomy. We give them the skills and the tools that they need in order to be successful in life. We know now that mental wellness is critically important to future wellbeing as a young person and as an adult. And yet we are still not having the same level of conversation, in terms of mental health, relative to other conversations that we’re having, like the importance of education. And I believe that needs to start with parents and that starts at very young ages, having conversations around encouraging young people to reflect on their emotions, starting to put labels and words to emotions that they’re feeling. Normalizing and actually encourage the expression of emotion, and moving from expression of emotion to really thinking about what does that mean? What do I need? How to cope? Teaching them the skills to cope when they are struggling or when they’re having a hard time. And really again, just empowering them and giving them the tools that they need in order to be successful and deal with mental health issues. Normalizing that we all go through struggles relative to our mental health and mental wellbeing to one degree or another throughout life. And that we all need to be prepared and have the tools in order to manage that.

Pardis Khosravi, PsyD: Yeah, I absolutely agree. I think the other piece is being connected to the other adults and folks in your child’s life. So I always think about a child as like the center of concentric circles. And as you go out, right, the next circle out is family. And then you go out to like, their community, their school, after school activities, the folks that are involved in that. And then beyond that is their neighborhood, the environment they live in, and you can keep going. And so I think being connected to all of those circles of people for your child, creating this network of adults and professionals, and providers and coaches and teachers and everyone else in your child’s life because, you know, those folks can sometimes cue in on what your child might be struggling with that maybe doesn’t show up at home or you haven’t noticed. And so being connected with those people can help you really know what is going on for your child in all of these different environments. I also earlier talked about the excessive pressure to excel and the impacts of perfectionism. And I think being really connected with everyone that your child is connected with can also help you have a sense of how much is their environment feeding into those feelings and that pressure. And so, I think just that connection to your child’s environment is also a really, really important thing as you consider their mental health and their wellbeing.

Ramsey Khasho, PsyD: Yeah, and I would just add to what Dr. Khosravi stated is as parents really going so far as to work collaboratively with young people to directly and explicitly identify those safe adults in which they can and should be having conversations with, recognizing vulnerably as parents that sometimes, and particularly as they launch into those adolescent years, may not want to talk to mom about certain things or may not want to talk to dad about certain things. And so who can they talk to about things that are going on in their life that are trusted and that are safe and naming those people, I think is a really important step that parents can take to really get connected with the larger adult community that supports them.

Cindy Lopez: Yeah. And for our listeners, again, just some podcast episodes that might be valuable to you in terms of communicating with your teen is a couple that come to mind, we just did one on validation and the importance of validation in your communication, communicating with curiosity and compassion, and there’s a lot more there. So, please take a look at past episodes where we really dig into some strategies that would be helpful to you in terms of communicating. And, Dr. Khosravi and Dr. Khasho, we’re so thankful for your time today and sharing your expertise and your insights. Before we wrap up this episode, I’m wondering if you have any final words of advice or guidance, anything you want to make sure our listeners really hear from you today?

Ramsey Khasho, PsyD: Yeah, I would just say we’ve got to keep the conversation on youth mental health going to Gen Z and millennials, keep up the great advocacy to all other generations. We’ve got to get educated. We’ve got to increase our knowledge around youth mental health. It’s critical that we increase accurate information about mental health. There’s also a lot of misinformation, and we really need to do a better job combating misinformation that’s out there that is really adversely impacting young people as well. We’ve heard the saying it takes a village and it truly does. There needs to be systemic efforts to address youth mental health. This is not something that is just going to be solved by the behavioral health community. Every single person has a role to play in addressing youth mental health: parents, educators, behavioral health providers, religious institutions. And I truly believe that with everyone working together in creating a system of care that supports young people and their mental wellness will create lasting collective impact that’ll really support young people in our world.

Pardis Khosravi, PsyD: You took the words right out of my mouth, Dr. Khasho. I agree. I think the takeaway here is the youth mental health crisis is real. And there is hope. I think both things are true. And I think we just need to continue to talk about it, to continue as parents to foster that open dialogue, really listening to what our kids are going through, what they’re sharing, thinking about how we can support them, how we can identify when they might need more support in getting them connected with treatment. I think that’s the critical role that parents play in helping kids identify when they are struggling and helping them get connected to that really important critical care.

Ramsey Khasho, PsyD: I would just add that the listeners today have taken the first step by just listening to this podcast, and I’d also encourage anyone listening today to think critically about what is one step, one actionable step that you can take after listening to this podcast that will make an impact, in some way. Maybe it’s going and having a conversation with your child about what you heard today. Maybe it’s talking to a local teacher about youth mental health and asking questions about what a school or a district is doing relative to youth mental health. So really, you know, if we’re all not only listening, but considering what we can do to take some actionable steps. I think that’s an important next step as well.

Cindy Lopez: Yes, completely agree. Thank you to both of you. I think that something that keeps coming back to mind and seems to be a thread throughout most of the episodes we’ve recorded and that is the idea as parents and caregivers to be curious, to ask questions of your kids to find out as you’re talking with them, don’t assume But just listen, be curious, validate, and as Dr. Khasho said, like do something and I think if we all did something that would create a big ripple in our community. So, to our listeners, thank you for joining us. I just want to say that you can reach out to us at Children’s Health Council. We mentioned lots of resources today, including our RISE IOP, parent coaching. We do also evaluations and assessments and therapy and treatment. So please contact us. You can email careteam@chconline.org, or you can call us at 650-688-3625. Dr. Khasho and Dr. Khosravi again, thank you for joining us today and our listeners too. Thank you for joining us today.

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