The Center for Youth Advocacy and Well-Being (CYAW) at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center “should be a national model of how we actually promote health,” a renowned mental health expert visiting the university said Friday.
Sarah Vinson, MD, professor and chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Morehouse School of Medicine and an adjunct faculty member at Emory University School of Medicine, addressed the Board of Governors of the University of Tennessee Alumni Association, which was meeting at the Memphis campus for the first time since 2020. Dr. Vinson spent last week at UT Health Science Center to learn more about the CYAW, its operations, and its outcomes.
“I go to a lot of conferences, and we hear about a lot of models,” Dr. Vinson said. When she heard what the center was doing, she wanted to come to Memphis to learn more.
The CYAW was established in 2015 under the leadership of Altha Stewart, MD. Dr. Stewart directs the center and also is the senior associate dean for Community Health Engagement and director of the Division of Public and Community Psychiatry in the College of Medicine. Dr. Stewart serves as president of the American Association for Community Psychiatry and was the first Black president of the American Psychiatric Association.
“Leadership matters,” Dr. Vinson told the board. “Dr. Stewart is absolutely a visionary leader.”
In 2023, Alicia Barnes, DO, joined the leadership team of the CYAW as the associate director to sustain and amplify the center’s work into the next decade. She is an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Preventive Medicine, the president of the Tennessee Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and serves on the executive council of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
The center is designed to deliver supportive trauma-informed services focused on the mental health needs of young people and their families. Specifically, the center makes referrals for youth in need of behavioral health and trauma-informed services to community partners. The focus is on those with mental health and trauma-related needs, who are at risk of entering the justice or child welfare systems.
Currently housed in the Department of Psychiatry, the CYAW focuses on young people who have experienced Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), trauma or violence early in life that negatively influences their mental health or behavior and contributes to a cycle of violence.
The goal of the CYAW is to improve the health and well-being of youth and their families by coordinating services, supports, and opportunities to help them achieve positive outcomes and thrive in their homes and communities. The innovative programs help children experiencing challenges, such as chronic school absences, disciplinary issues, gang involvement, trauma exposure, and challenges with mental disorders or chronic medical conditions.
Dr. Vinson said she had the opportunity to talk with the staff of the center “about how they got here, why they were here, and what keeps them here.” She said they are truly passionate about what they do.
“What they are doing is truly extraordinary,” she said. “It’s what everyone is talking about, but not doing.” The center currently has 10 employees.
“They are passionate, they are making a difference, they’re meaningfully engaging families and communities that other people characterize as difficult or unreachable or hard to engage,” Dr. Vinson said. “Thank you all for supporting their work, because what they’re doing here is huge.”
According to the center, over the past 10 years, it has:
- Built collaborative relationships with city, county, and state agency partners, educational and pediatric health care systems, and community-based organizations involved in designing and supporting behavioral health and trauma-informed systems for youth and their families.
- Designed the first youth re-entry program for Shelby County using available data on gaps in the mental health system serving justice-involved youth. This was accomplished in collaboration with the Memphis and Shelby County Juvenile Court.
- Hosted community events to provide educational opportunities to become better informed and more involved in working on issues for youth-related mental health, trauma, justice involvement, and challenges in school.
- Expanded interprofessional collaborations across the six colleges at UT Health Science Center, as well as with the University of Memphis, LeMoyne-Owen College, Southwest Tennessee Community College, and Christian Brothers University.
Earlier in the week, Dr. Vinson addressed a Rotary Club luncheon at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art on the social determinants of children’s mental health and lessons learned from UT Health Science Center. She also attended a dinner hosted by leadership of Alliance Healthcare Services, a nonprofit organization that is the largest comprehensive behavioral health provider in Shelby County.
“Dr. Vinson is a remarkable nationally renowned leader in mental health and her coming here, as well as her remarks about the center and the work of Dr. Altha Stewart and Dr. Alicia Barnes, indicate that their work is not only important to Memphis and Tennessee, but it is truly a model for around the country for what can be done to help our communities and our youth,” said UT Health Science Center’s Chancellor Peter Buckley, MD.
