Mental Health Support Coaching Program

Program Overview

The Virtual Mental Health Support Coaching (MHSC) Program for Adults and Youth promotes the mental health and wellbeing of adults (ages 18 and older) and youth (12-17 years old) through participation in mental health support groups, led by trained Mental Health Support Coaches. The program helps youth and adults learn skills and behaviors for self-managing stress, depression, anger, grief, and conflict. An integral aspect of the program is to assess its impact on participating adults' and youths' levels of stress, depression, wellbeing, and psychological and physical quality of life through questionnaires that measure these health indicators.

Adult and youth (16 or 17 years old) coaches will be selected and trained as Mental Health Support Coaches to conduct mental health support groups using the MHSC Program Training Manual. The criteria for selecting these Coaches are: (a) have great verbal communication skills, (b) enjoy teaching others, (c) are dependable and compassionate, and (d) are culturally sensitive. Selected Coaches are trained virtually in two, 4-hour sessions where mental health support skills and behaviors are discussed and practiced.

Trained Coaches implement the program by conducting three 2-hour mental health support groups, including roughly 10 participants each. Youth coaches (ages 16 and 17) work with youth participants (ages 12 to 17) while adult coaches (ages 18 and older) work with adult participants (ages 18 and older). Coaches lead one support group each week for three consecutive weeks. An expected secondary benefit of the MHSC Program is that it will help destigmatize seeking treatment for mental health concerns that exist in many low-income communities.

Role and Responsibilities of Mental Health Support Coaches

Mental Health Support Coaches are trained individuals from the community who facilitate mental health support group sessions. These sessions are grounded in science-based strategies and designed to help participants, both youth and adults, better understand and manage aspects of their health such as stress, depression, grief, and anger. Coaches do not provide counseling or therapy; rather they encourage mental health support group participants to teach and learn from each other behaviors and skills for managing stress, depression, etc. and they share information from a Mental Health Resource Guide that has behaviors and skills for managing such emotions. This Guide is also given to participants in the mental health support coaching groups.

The MHSC program is implemented separately for youth and adults: Adult Mental Health Support Coaches lead groups for adults (ages 18 years or older), and Youth Mental Health Support Coaches (ages 16 to 17) lead groups for youth (ages 12 to 17).