JAMA Psychiatry: Prof. Spencer on Youth-Initiated Mentoring as COVID-19 Mental Health Response

Research has shown that COVID-19 is negatively affecting adolescents’ mental health. So what can clinical services do to help?

In an opinion piece published in JAMA Psychiatry, BUSSW Professor Renée Spencer and research colleagues from the University of Amsterdam and University of Massachusetts, Boston, write that a mentorship approach called youth-initiated mentoring may be the key to providing much-needed support.

Excerpted from “Youth-Initiated Mentoring as a Scalable Approach to Addressing Mental Health Problems During the COVID-19 Crisis” (JAMA Psychiatry) by Renée Spencer, Levi van Dam, and Jean Rhodes:

There have been multiple reports of increases in mental health challenges for adolescents during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, including a rapid systematic review indicating that adolescents are now more likely to experience high rates of depression and anxiety. This calls for a response from clinical services to offer support and early intervention where possible and be prepared for an increase in mental health problems. It also calls for the mobilization of social networks, which are beneficial for health and can function as a buffer against various individual and contextual risks. Especially for adolescents, supportive relationships with caring adults have been found to be a protective factor of the development for mental health problems. Therefore, besides societal awareness of the potential effect of these supportive relationships, clinicians, social workers, and teachers should facilitate youths’ connections with natural mentors.”

Read the full article here on the JAMA website.