Session: Uniting to Promote Equity: Tackling Mental Health Disparities through Stakeholder-Led Initiatives with Ethnoracially Minoritized Service Users (Society for Social Work and Research 29th Annual Conference)

This symposium spotlights the critical need to address racial disparities in mental health services and emphasizes the practical application of stakeholder-derived strategies to foster an inclusive and equitable care environment for ethnoracially minoritized youth and young adults experiencing psychosis or suicidality. The symposium directly connects to the conference theme by showcasing stakeholder engagement, community-based interventions, and initiatives that promote collaboration, partnership, and training across disciplines and communities. The first presentation will describe findings from a quality improvement project seeking to enhance services within early intervention for psychosis to better support BIPOC youth and young adults experiencing racism and discrimination, highlighting strategies from the perspective of service users, family members, and providers. The second presentation, will illustrate how researchers partnered with an Expert Steering Committee (ESC) comprised of service users, family members, and providers of color to co-develop new culturally responsive tools to enhance Shared Decision Making (SDM) within early intervention programs, including highlighting key content that was incorporated into learning modules for service users and providers. The last presentation will report findings regarding the effectiveness of Life is Precious (LIP), a community-based, treatment-adjunctive, after-school program that was designed with input from Latina youth and their mothers to address suicidality among Latina adolescents, including highlighting LIPs impact on clinical and school-related outcomes. Overall, this symposium aims to equip attendees with insights and strategies to address mental health disparities through community-driven, culturally responsive approaches for ethnoracially diverse youth and young adults. Learning objectives encompass recognizing the necessity for culturally responsive interventions, evaluating program effectiveness, utilizing diverse strategies for disseminating findings, and engaging diverse stakeholders in mental health Quality Improvement initiatives to promote inclusivity and equity in mental health care.