Sacramento Youth Center

I am applying for this prize to increase the capacity and the impact of our online youth mentoring program which focuses on mental health & wellness. As a nonprofit we are working to develop a formal version of this curriculum and platform as a digital tele-mentoring program. W aim to provide access to high-quality trauma informed, mental health mentoring, regardless of socio-geographic barriers.

Due to the pandemic we took our mentoring programs online, purchased a generic online learning platform, filmed our mentoring curriculum in our garage, and built a online mentoring course in just 3 weeks. We then attempted to transfer 20 - VERY isolated & recently resettled refugee youth, to an online tele-mentoring program. Because we were no longer able to serve these youth in-person and ending program NOT an option for these youth - this program was developed.

By December 2020, our online mentoring program had gained so much demand in our region, and we grew from 20 youth to 150 served online, a 650% increase in active youth members in only 8-months. 

While our physical youth center has re-opened, the need for accessible high-quality digital/online mental health programs, serving diverse youth populations remains in high demand. 

My name is Raquel Shipp, I am the co-founder/executive director of the Sacramento Youth Center (SYC). The founding of this center brings together my experience helping to establish a learning center for refugees in Nairobi, Kenya and devoting the past 7-years to building programs for underprivileged youth in the USA 

Studying psychology during my undergraduate, I became aware of the importance of mental health. In 2017 I noticed a major lack of access to services in my own underprivileged neighborhood of North Sacramento. 

My husband and I put our expertise in youth development to work, in one of the most diverse and underserved neighborhoods in the region. In 2019 SYC was founded in North Sacramento/Del Paso Heights.

We curated a beautiful space, including digital tools, and access to high-quality mental health programs - informed by trauma care practices. A place that youth could call their own, build community, and gain clarity for their future.

The pandemic, challenged this vision, leading us & our team to develop a digital tele-mentoring approach leading to 650% increase, reaching 150 youth in 8-months. We now envision our digital tele-mentoring programs reaching beyond our region serving 1,500 underprivileged youth by 2024 - all-over the world.

The problem we are trying to address is access to high-quality, mentoring for mental health and socio-emotional/physical wellness. 

Youth we serve, typically live in a designated SB 535 Disadvantaged Community, where 25% of the population is considered to be below the federal poverty line. The areas that our youth reside in are designated as medically underserved, including access to mental health services. 20,618 youth between the ages of 13 - 24 years-old reside in our surrounding census-tracts. In the USA, 59.6% of youth with major depression do not receive any mental health treatment.

Our centers/online programs aim to develop youth,14-24 years-old, by focusing on the 8-dimensions of wellness developed by SAMHSA. Our small-group trauma-informed mentoring program, walks youth through strategies and awareness, to increase personal wellness and mental-health. We primarily work with youth who are underserved, at-risk, and/or immigrant/refugee. SYC connects youth with caring adults and a community of youth. We support youth in overcoming socio-emotional barriers through supportive and action orientated mentoring. 

Through the development of our digital tele-mentoring, we are spearheading youth access to mental health & wellness. We plan to scale this program to serve underserved youth beyond our community - the USA and world.

Our program goes beyond a series of self-help videos and TRULY to engages youth in real community via online-access. This flexible approach allows youth to access our high-quality mentoring programs regardless of transportation, community health concerns, and/or socio-emotional obstacles. 

Our digital tele-mentoring program is truly mentoring. Although youth meet and learn online they do more than just watch video lessons. The program requires youth, peers, and mentors to connect on a weekly basis remotely and/or hybrid to discuss/debrief, socio-emotional lessons presented. Individuals within the small group cohort communicate with peers throughout the week via the learning platform and engage with mentors one-one - this is tele-mentoring.

We plan to upgrade this technology to ensure that more youth have access and that the video quality and program content is continually relevant.

We utilize research based methods of mental health & we employ a Marriage and Family Therapist consultant to ensure program methods are consistent with mental health practices.

In the USA, 59.6% of youth with major depression do not receive any mental health treatment. We aim to provide relief via our programs and estimate in 2024, our tele-mentoring will serve 1,500 youth annually, including youth who residing throughout the world.

We built the pilot version of this program out of necessity to meet the unique needs of our youth during the pandemic. As we shared our newly created resource with other organizations/schools, we found the need for online specific mental health curriculum was not unique and that many organizations and thousands of youth could benefit all over the world.

This led to us to formally develop a plan to scale the mental health mentoring curriculum including the following attributes of tele-mentoring:

• Quality mental health youth mentoring curriculum and formatting
• Beautiful high-quality produced videos
• Increased capacity for online learning platform systems to reach thousands of youth per year
• Robust mentor training and support throughout active programs
• Multi-lingual lessons and media development

We are working towards this by investing funds into:

• Professional curriculum development
• Video production
• Collaborating with other organizations & professionals to build out a comprehensive curriculum 
• Including youth voice and contribution to the project

We continue to share this dream with other funders and providers aiming to collaborate and expand the reach to serve youth most in need. We are finding some financial and great amounts of collaborative support to make this dream a reality regardless of our limited resources.