With prom and graduation season upon us, many teenagers may be feeling pressure, and in some cases, serious stress.
Last month, the Trump Administration moved to in school mental health grants that would have gone toward helping schools hire more mental health professionals. Despite the move from the federal government, low and no-cost mental health resources remain across South Florida.
鈥溾�奍f anyone has Medicaid or if they have a lower income, there are non-profit mental health facilities out there,鈥� said Justin Johansen, a licensed marriage-family therapist and the co-owner of the private therapy group in Plantation.
READ MORE: New Horizons: 50 years of mental health impact in Miami
Johansen recently spoke with SA国际传谋 about those resources, and some non-mental health-specific outlets for South Florida teenagers.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
SA国际传谋: 鈥奧ould doctors agree that this time of year can be particularly mentally taxing or stressful for young people?
JOHANSEN: 鈥奍f you think about the stress that accompanies these things, you know, graduation is a big transition. The prom can lead into future graduation and these monumental events, which [can lead to] so much comparison. So it definitely can trigger a lot of angst, a lot of panic.
And if kids think about it, if they have this family distance, who do these kids turn to? We hope they have a healthy peer group [but] not everybody does. So I would think most folks in the mental health world would say it can be a tough time for teens.
Therapy can be costly and unaffordable for many families. So what kinds of resources might be available in South Florida that take away that barrier?
鈥奍f anyone has Medicaid or if they have a lower income, there are non-profit mental health facilities out there. There's something called a , and this lists all the mental health services in Broward County.
Very few of them are for-profit services. So nonprofit[s] such as and is a nonprofit in Miami-Dade. So that's something to look out for if money is an issue.
Outside of mental health specific resources, what kinds of healthy things can teens turn to if they start to feel stress or particularly bogged down mentally?
鈥奡o one of the biggest struggles is bullying.
Bullying leads to loneliness and feeling like you have nobody. So healthy connections that teens have, they're going to model those healthy connections. It will also develop a sense of secure relationships so the team can rely on these secure relationships to deal with all of these life transitions. If those emotional needs are not met by a healthy relationship, they're gonna get met by an unhealthy relationship.
or NAMI [is] all over Dade, Palm Beach, Broward. They have support groups, family mentors, peer mentors for teens, family wellness support groups. They have peer wellness support groups.
Another resource is churches. A lot of us at Broward Therapists we're faith-based, and churches are known for having what they call teen life groups, where it's essentially three to five teens getting together to do what they say is 鈥榙oing life together鈥� and you hang out, have a good influence on each other.
The third thing that we would recommend for this kind of loneliness epidemic, is [that because] there is a big over focus on self at the moment in our generation, we have seen life-changing results if the teens and parents鈥攊deally they do it together鈥� can get themselves to focus on helping others.
This is what we found in Dade-County: There's something called , and that is in Miami. It's a nonprofit youth basketball program where young people can get together, focus on basketball. In Miami, there's something called , which is another support group for teams where they all get together with the focus being guitar. We found YMU, which is something called .
[But there鈥檚 also] animal shelters and food shelters. Helping others alone has such a benefit to depression, to isolation. Anything you guys can do to be of service to others, if you experiment with it, you're going to find that a lot of that loneliness will have some changes.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
