According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, the number of youth who felt anxious for more than half of days in the past week began to increase early in the pandemic and reached a peak at more than 60% of youth in 2020. The Youth Development portfolio seeks to address this growing mental health crisis by utilizing Collective Impact and human-centered design to support organizations in meeting the mental health and social-emotional learning needs of youth and the adult professionals who support them.

Thrive Chicago has brought together nonprofit and community partners along with three Chicago elementary schools with the goal of improving access to a world-class education. The Collaborative for World Class Education (CWCE) convenes parents, teachers, and principals and leverages their insights, expertise, and experiences to identify the most pressing needs in their schools. Thrive partners with the Chicago Public Education Fund, Kids First Chicago, and Stand for Children on the CWCE initiative, with the eventual goal of bringing the concept to additional schools and communities.

As part of a strategy to increase access to mental health services and improve systems alignment, Thrive is building a coalition to identify opportunities and gaps, informed by data, research, and practitioner observations. The initiative’s objective is to provide young adults with the non-cognitive skills needed to achieve their postsecondary goals.

Thrive has developed a community of practice featuring more than a dozen youth mentorship organizations that regularly meet to discuss their challenges and opportunities, and to share ideas and best practices. In addition, Thrive also has contracted two licensed therapists to provide individualized services to 12 mentor organizations. Each organization has received two months of one-on-one coaching and clinician-led reflective supervision designed to increase awareness of the mental health challenges staff face and to create organizational culture changes to better support frontline staff.

In addition to the increased focus on supporting the mental health needs of youth, Thrive also recognizes the role of stress and trauma in the lives of adults. In response, Thrive is in the planning stages of a pilot program designed to highlight the effects of secondary trauma on youth-serving adults and the impact on the youth whom they mentor. This project aims to decrease the incidence of secondary trauma by providing professional development opportunities and direct mental health services to schools and the mentor organizations that serve them. Thrive has provided Covid relief funding to 12 organizations to address secondary trauma and burnout and to improve employee wellness over the longer-term.