A recipe for change: Teens talking to teens

By MELISSA WHITWORTH 

This article is part of The Recorder’s ongoing series examining the child and adolescent mental health crisis through the perspectives of parents, teens, educators and mental health professionals.

Two decades ago, Northern Westchester Hospital’s then president, Joel Seligman, set up a team of highschoolers to help advise the hospital on what mattered most to their health and well-being. It was an unusual move, but one that has been so successful and popular with our local teenagers, the program has now been replicated by four other hospitals in New York. It brings together children from grades nine through 11 (recruiting starts in eighth grade) who talk openly with doctors, nurses and hospital administration to hear about what our younger community members are experiencing. It centers the kids in the conversation and, not surprisingly, mental health has always been front and center of those conversations.

The President’s Junior Leadership Council now comprises 50 local students from eight school districts. The group meets twice a month, said Amy Rosenfeld who oversees the Student Experiences and School Relationships Community Health/Volunteerism work at NWH. Two council members, Matthew Geller, a Junior at Byram Hills High School, and Sloan Wasserman, a junior at John Jay High School, have written essays for The Recorder about adolescent mental health, sharing their perspectives on the pressures and drivers that teens face (see Page 6).

“There is nothing more magical than when I can get students teaching each other, whether it’s high school students teaching, elementary students, older students, older high school students teaching younger high school students,” Rosenfeld said.  

“There’s evidence-based research showing that peer-to-peer education works, especially in the wellness and health space. There is science behind it: when you speak to students and you empower them to be the ones who are leading this message, it’s only more effective and more positive.”

Those students will share that feedback within the council meetings and then spread the information among their friends. Rosenfeld said the aim is to give students the respect to have a voice at the table and the opportunity to help make changes to the system. “They’re the ones that are going to help lead their peers, their friends, to that change, and ultimately maybe their parents to a change if needed,” she said.

In 2023, the National Alliance on Mental Illness published a report that showed the importance of youth engagement in health care. 

“Research speaks to the efficacy of peers.” the report said. “In a cross-site study conducted in New York and Wisconsin, the New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services found an average reduction of over 43 percent in inpatient services for clients who received peer-support services. Similarly, they found a nearly 30 percent increase in outpatient treatment visits.”

“Simply put,” NAMI concluded, “people receiving peer-support services were less likely to end up in hospitals and more likely to engage with their treatment providers.”

Rosenfeld has been in her position for eight years, after starting at NWH as a clinician focused on diet and nutrition. She quickly became engaged in community outreach.

“We’ve been committed to preventative health education in the mental health space for 20-plus years,” she said. Activities have included “engaging with elementary, middle and high school students, as well as doing PTA workshops for parents. More recently we have been doing this with preschools,” she added.

Students at the table: Northern Westchester Hospital’s President’s Junior Leadership Council stresses the success of peer-to-peer education on mental health.  Contributed photo

The new mental health initiative combining NWH, Northwell and the new behavioral health center is taking her work to “the next level” she said, “and having more of an acute response to what’s going on.”

Construction is well on its way at the location at 657 East Main St., Mount Kisco, the future home of both the Northwell Child and Adolescent Outpatient Psychiatry Practice and the School Behavioral Health Center. Northwell expects an opening date for the practice in the next several months and the Behavioral Health Center plans to open early this summer.

“My role is to help continue to foster and cultivate relationships with our school districts and the students and parents in our community so they know that this is something that we care about for our students,” said Rosenfeld. “The PJLC helps spread the word to their peers and then from peer to peer: ‘How can we as the PJLC students get out there peer to peer and say, Hey guys, have you heard about this? This is a really great resource and here’s why you should trust it.’”

Trust is a key issue when it comes to talking to adults about mental health. In a 2019 study of peer-to-peer efficacy by Mental Health First Aid, from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, the authors wrote: “Teenagers are often afraid they’ll be judged or criticized for what they’re going through or how they’re feeling. That’s why they are more likely to go to their friends for support before reaching out to an adult. This makes it incredibly important that young people feel confident in supporting each other through the good and bad times.” 

Each academic year the council focuses on one specific topic. This year the focus is about the importance of sleep for mental health. The end project will be a self-published book about sleep and it will be distributed amongst schools and libraries locally. The previous year’s topic was based on destigmatizing mental health. 

Geller and Wasserman have played a key role in fundraising and awareness for the new children’s behavioral health center which will open in Mount Kisco later this year.

Wasserman said her involvement with NWH has been vital for communicating the unique challenges facing adolescents today. Adults are “not living as a teen in our day and age, that’s just the bottom line,” Wasserman observed. “I understand that you were a teen and I understand you’ve been through it, but you’re not a teen living in our world with social media. I think that that’s just something that we as teenagers and young adults need to step up and do for ourselves if we want any change.”

The next article in The Recorder’s Youth Mental Health Series will examine the ground-breaking mental health program at the Boys & Girls Club of Northern Westchester in Mount Kisco, the first-of-its kind among the 5,400 Boys & Girls Clubs in the U.S., which serve more than 3 million young people.