ADOLESCENT WELLNESS

Adolescent Wellness, Inc. (AWI) acts to simplify the prevention of mental illness and its most tragic symptom, suicide. AWI promotes activities for all children to practice balancing the weight of life’s worries with the relief of skills and knowledge. These problem solving skills and social supports strengthen their ability to overcome challenges and crises. AWI's five year goal is to help 100,000 youth measurably improve their coping skills and knowledge.

The design of our self-tutorials and other resilience activities is informed by best practices; achieving our goal is estimated to prevent depression from occurring in over 4.500 individuals. (“The number needed to treat to prevent one case of depressive disorder was 22.” ~Am J Psychiatry 2008; 165:1272–1280). The activities optimize the interaction of our thoughts and behaviors, cognitive-behaviorism, and are developed by McLean Hospital, the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, and Boston Children’s Hospital.

The problems of mental illness are widespread - about a quarter of us will experience symptoms of mental illness, ranging from depression or anxiety to schizophrenia. Early treatment is important for optimizing outcomes and prevention of some cases is possible for the most common mental illness - depression. Lifetime prevalence rates for depression are at least 9.3% (Wittchen et al. 1998) and may be as high as 24.0% (Lewinsohn et al., 1993) of the US population.

The median age for depression symptom onset is 15 so prevention activities must be practiced by younger ages. We know that educating 22 healthy youth with coping skills and knowledge prevents one case of depression. The AWI strategy is to help keep young kids healthy. Since 2006, AWI has collaborated with health care providers, educators, clergy, parents and directly with youth. We have assisted with curricula development, activity development and piloting programs.

We have no need to 'reinvent the wheel' because we are within an hour of leading researchers, providers and educators. We collaborate with McLean Hospital, Boston Children's Hospital, Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, and South Shore Hospital. What is known is what is effective for preventing depression; what is unknown is how to promote these activities with a large number of children. For example, engaging and easy to implement wellness curricula have been adopted by schools slowly, implemented by less than 1% of schools after three years. AWI will continue to facilitate school implementation but our priority is to provide children direct access to activities developing wellness skills and knowledge.

AWI has unusual capacity for assisting with pilot projects and its connections facilitate collaboration among organizations. AWI is a volunteer organization; key resources are contracted as needed. Pilot projects often need speed and flexibility more than large dollar amounts, perhaps as simple as renting space for a focus group or to hire consultants in creative problem solving. AWI has facilitated parent and clergy workshops, sponsored Train The Trainer workshops for educators, and assisted in piloting curricula with McLean Hospital, Boston Children's Hospital, South Shore Hospital and the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology. Most recently, AWI facilitated the design and funding of a virtual Wellness Center suitable for ages 8 and older to access directly, 24/7

In the month just completed, the virtual Wellness Center has been accessed by 868 unique individuals to use self-tutorials, access tip sheets and participate in on-line discussion forums.