Student Voices and Advocacy for Student Mental Health
Overview
Presenters:
Amir Whitaker
Alysha Boone
Elizabeth Simon
Amanda Arellano
Presenter Emails:
Alyshaboone10@gmail.com
adapoptropicashappybird0000@gmail.com
This panel presentation will be hosted by Dr. Molly Strear, Associate Professor of Counseling at San Francisco State University. She will be welcoming Dr. Amir Whitaker, Esq. who is senior policy counsel for the ACLU, and the founder and director of Project Knucklehead, which is a non-profit serving thousands of underserved and system-involved youth through educational, music, art, and mentoring programs. Dr. Whitaker received his masters and doctorate in Educational Psychology prior to obtaining his JD. He is an incredible advocate for youth justice, equity, and mental health, and he has organized a panel with, Alysha Boone, Elizabeth Simon, Amanda Arellano who were members of the ACLU’s Youth Liberty Squad (YLS). They will share their experiences and discuss school-based mental health as a civil rights issue. Over the past few years, YLS students have led several impactful advocacy efforts related to mental health. The pandemic has created unprecedented challenges with learning and social-emotional wellbeing. Students responded to the unprecedented challenges created by the pandemic by demanding state officials take more meaningful action to support student wellness. In this session, students will share personal experiences, stigma reduction campaigns, and the findings their a wellness survey completed by 1,200+ California students. This presentation will share recent findings from the “California State of Student Wellness Report” released by the ACLU California Action and The CSU Center to Close the Opportunity Gap.
Learning Objectives:
After completing this training, participants will be able to:
- Identify the current mental health needs of youth in CA
- Identify youth advocacy efforts to increase access to mental health services
- List two recommendations about how to provide accessible and effective mental health services for youth
- Describe barriers to service and stigma issues from the perspective of students
Accessibility statement: SF State Department of Counseling’s Equity and Justice – Focused Integrated Behavioral Health project welcomes persons with disabilities and will provide reasonable accommodations (including ASL interpretation) upon request. If you need reasonable accommodations for this event, please make your request by contacting Julie Chronister jchronis@sfsu.edu by Thursday 10/20/22.
Continuing Education Information
The Department of Counseling at San Francisco State University, an accredited post-secondary educational institution, maintains responsibility for the program and its content. Real-time attendance at this webinar has been approved for 1.0 hours of continuing education credit for LMFT, LPCC, and/or LCSW as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences (BPC 4980.54, 4989.34, 4996.22, 4999.76). Please direct concerns about this course or its content to Tiffany O’Shaughnessy, PhD taosh@sfsu.edu
There is no cost to attend this webinar. Participants licensed in California by the BBS desiring CEU credit for attending this webinar will be directed to sign in at the start of the webinar and will be required to provide an evaluation of the session directly following the webinar and verify their participation and attendance. CEU certificates will be emailed to participants who successfully complete both the sign in and evaluation process.
