Nunchi Health - UCLA Fellowship

Health care access

West LA

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

The global youth mental health crisis is an urgent and under-addressed public health challenge. Suicide is a leading cause of death among adolescents worldwide, with rates disproportionately affecting minority and immigrant youth. Despite this need, immigrant and minority youth often face unique barriers to support, including language obstacles, cultural stigma, and mistrust in healthcare systems.
Amid this landscape, the Nunchi Health founder, Dr. Andrew Chang, identified both a critical challenge and a transformative opportunity: to reimagine youth mental health care not as a clinical transaction, but as a culturally anchored, peer-powered movement. In a world where many interventions treat mental health as an individual issue, Nunchi Health views healing as communal. Where traditional models focus on diagnosis, Nunchi centers culture. This represents an innovative approach, and necessary corrective to a system that has long marginalized the very populations it claims to serve.

Our program, the Nunchi Fellowship, is an 8-week selective training program for mental health leadership. Our program delivers mental health workshops rooted in three core innovations:
1. Culturally Matched Peer Groups
Unlike most clinical programs that organize youth by diagnosis or symptom severity, Nunchi groups young people by shared cultural identity and lived experiences. By creating identity-congruent groups, Nunchi fosters instant psychological safety, making it easier for participants to speak openly and form trust.
2. Identity-Based Narrative Therapy
Nunchi Health’s workshops blend trauma-informed care with narrative therapy, allowing youth to process their emotions through storytelling, cultural reflection, and shared dialogue. The curriculum is grounded in established models such as mindfulness techniques, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
3. Scalable Train-the-Trainer Model
To ensure reach and sustainability, Nunchi developed a rigorous train-the-trainer model. Over 100 peer facilitators—including university students, community health workers, and young educators—have been trained to deliver the workshops in schools and youth centers. Facilitators receive eight weeks of training followed by ongoing mentorship and support.
With grant support of LA2050, we will expand our established Nunchi Fellowship model, which has been conducted virtually and on other campuses including Harvard University, to our on-campus chapter at UCLA.

The outcomes of Nunchi Health’s work have been both scientifically measurable and profoundly human. Our model has impacted over 16,000 students across 32 countries of origin, primarily from immigrant, refugee, and racially marginalized communities. Through our culturally responsive, peer-led workshops, we have not only improved mental health outcomes—but transformed how young people experience care, connection, and identity. A Harvard-trained psychiatrist, our founder, Dr. Chang has consistently bridged science, empathy, and innovation to address a mental health crisis often overlooked in both academic and clinical circles.
We aim to harness this impact on Los Angeles county. Los Angeles County is highly diverse, and is often a leader in promoting inclusive representation in various domains from news outlets to media. Through our well-established connections at our UCLA chapter, we are ready to expand in delivering our flagship programmatic activity, the Nunchi Fellowship.