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The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors recently approved $225,000 for Youth Community Service (YCS), a Palo Alto-based nonprofit that provides support services for youth, to expand its substance and suicide prevention programs in the northern end of the county.
The funding will help YCS’ Youth Connectedness Initiative (Youth Connect), an after-school program that connects high school students with peers and adults and fosters a sense of well-being and belonging in their communities.
“There’s a tremendous need for preventative mental health services for our youth,” county Supervisor Joe Simitian said in a press release issued by his office. “Fortunately, Youth Community Services has a unique model that brings services directly to kids. The Youth Connect peers aren’t strangers; they are trained peer leaders. Young folks want to connect with peers they can trust.”
The peer leaders, who work in teams, develop service-learning projects that address needs and gaps in their communities while also strengthening their relationships with each other. “Our peer leaders have hosted in-person workshops, undertaken service projects and produced educational videos that amplify youth voices,” YCSExecutive Director Mora Oommen said in the press release.
YCS established Youth Connect in 2017 in response to national reports that called for a greater investment in mental health resources for youth. The county and city of Palo Alto have committed financial support for the program since 2018, something that Oommen described as particularly beneficial to its programs. “By pooling our resources with the City of Palo Alto and the County, we have been able to do so much more,” she said in the release.
The county’s allocation of $225,000, an increase from its initial approval of $150,000 in May, shows its continued support for YCS, as it leverages grants from the federal government’s American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. The additional funding means that YCS can expand its services to reach more young people with an assurance that its programs will run through June 2023.
“We can’t expect kids to be resilient all on their own,” Simitian said in the press release. “For a lot of them, it’s tough out there. There is help, though, and we need to let folks know about the programs and services available to them,” he said, referring to YCS and other county-supported initiatives that address substance use and suicide prevention efforts.
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