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Policy Codesign

Policy Codesign for

Okanogan County Youth Mental Health & Substance Use Prevention

The Issue

Mental health challenges for youth are urgent and widespread.

Up to 1 in 5 young people in the U.S. have a reported mental, emotional, developmental, or behavioral disorder. Yet, about half of those with treatable mental health disorders do not receive adequate treatment. Adolescent substance use disorders affect over a million youth in the U.S. each year, but only 10% of youth report receiving substance use prevention programming.

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About the Initiative

Better designed policies can help increase access to effective mental health care and programs.

Policy Codesign is a participatory, creative process to help people in communities learn from each other and explore local policy solutions to complex problems. The Policy Codesign process produces a policy recommendation and implementation plan tailored to a particular community’s context. Because the reccommendations and plan are created by community members who have both professional expertise and lived-experience with the issues they are are addressing, Policy Codesign produces results that are both effective and sustainable.

What we hope to achieve

This project aims to produce a policy recommendation and implementation plan for youth mental health promotion and substance use disorder prevention in Okanogan County.

How hope to achieve it

Our codesign team will go through a five-phased process to learn from each other and explore local policy solutions to these complex problems. We’ll get input from a larger advisory team and share ideas with a community sounding board along the way.