Nourishing the Awesome in Adolescent Youth

Play Equity to Advance Mental Health (sponsored by the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation)

County of Los Angeles

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative

Over the past decade, youth mental illness has become public health emergency and the primary US contributor to the global burden of disease. The alarming increase in youth mental illness spans race, gender, and economic status, yet is contained to the age groups of adolescent youth and young adults. Notably, this upward trend aligns with smart phone market saturation and increasing dependence upon them. During adolescence, young people rely heavily on social interaction to learn, grow, and flourish. Smart phone proliferation over the past 15 years has drastically altered how society as a whole connects and communicates. Young people, traversing a stage of human development notably reliant on social connection, are disproportionately affected by this new social landscape. To accommodate, nationally representative studies indicate increased isolation, sleep deprivation, and excessive consumption of social media within this age demographic. All barriers to healthy development.

This project will address increasing rates of youth mental illness caused by smart phone supported behavior trends (isolation, sleep deprivation and problematic social media consumption) that interfere with positive youth development. The program will create an IOS and android app that engages users in challenges specifically engineered to counteract unhealthy smart phone usage and facilitates access to the supports and capabilities proven to improve developmental outcomes (developmental assets). The target population for the application will be children between the ages of 11 and 13, on the cusp of adolescence and typically transitioning from elementary to middle school educational environments. Developmental assets, 40 measurable, observable, evidence based experiences and capabilities, will anchor the challenge content along with input from end users to help drive program design in a manner consistent with youth experiences and current fascination trends. It is a compelling program, designed for and by end users, that challenges young people to engage in developmental asset rich activities, is incentivized in s manner that is meaningful to the users, using a platform familiar to and notably engaged in by adolescent youth, that counteracts isolation, sleep deprivation and social media consumption practices currently supported by smart phone utilization practices. And it's fun.

The Los Angeles County communities will learn about positive youth development and gain access to developmental asset opportunities. Furthermore, Los Angeles will unlock new and innovative access to asset acquisition and young people will develop the support and capabilities they need to navigate the vagaries of the teen years. Through the initial community engagement process, LA County will become more aware of and informed about developmental assets. Once launched, the app short term outcome will be increased acquisition of developmental assets, which will be monitored using the Developmental Assets Profile, a valid and reliable measure, that will be embedded in the app itself. Intermediate outcomes will be improved school attendance, reduced disciplinary incidents and improved academic performance. And, perhaps more importantly, LA County will see increased adolescent young people discovering their own unique awesome. The app platform will also facilitate future scalability.

Initial program success will be measured by engaging communities in a collaborative effort to design a product. Engagement will allow an opportunity for Intentional Mental Health to spread awareness about positive youth development, while gaining insight about what will connect with the program users themselves. IMH will host events with the goal of engaging 200 end users in focus group sessions and design testing. Once complete, IMH will test the program prototype, for which success will be defined as an increase in developmental assets by the users. To measure this, users will complete the Developmental Assets Profile (DAP)prior to program participation and once again after three months. A significant increase in assets indicated on the DAP will be considered success. The application platform allows for IMH to closely monitor future success and collect data regarding higher yielding features that promote continued development of the app itself and research worthy data.