Funded Projects

Bridging Gap: Cultivating Wellness Through Play

Project Year

2024

City & State

Oakland, California

Program Name

CATCH Resident

Topic

Mental Health (LHI)

Program Description

THE PROBLEM/PROJECT GOAL:  My CATCH project aims to address mental health needs within Oakland with a focus on children within immigrant and refugee communities. These groups are often overlooked for mental health support, and existing resources frequently fall short in terms of accessibility, affordability, and cultural relevance for children.     PRIMARY SETTING:  To tackle this issue, I will forge partnerships with key community stakeholders, including Soccer Without Borders (SWB), Castlemont High School, the pediatricians at their associated school-based clinic, and the Diversity, and Equity, and Inclusion representatives at the UCSF BCH Claremont Clinic. Together we will co-develop a mental health program for immigrant and refugee high school students at Castlemont High School.    NUMBER OF CHILDREN AFFECTED:  The assessment and development phase will aim to reach a minimum of 50 students, with at least 8 receiving the initial pilot program. Plans to expand the program will be dependent on interest and engagement from the school and student body.    PROPOSED INTERVENTION  This project is two-fold, with the first portion aimed towards assessing specific needs and the second portion slated to be a multi-week tailored curriculum provided on a regular basis at no-to-low cost to the attendees.   Needs Assessment:  While we believe that there are specific barriers and needs that are common amongst immigrant and refugee communities, there are equally numerous needs that are unique to specific groups and individuals within these communities, especially given the rapidly changing social, economic, and cultural context of Oakland and surrounding communities. As such, we plan to conduct an initial needs assessment of the target groups within the school to better understand their specific concerns regarding mental health and also to determine which metaphors and behavioral health skills are most appropriate.   Mental Health Program:  The core concept of the program will be to address mild to moderate mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, stress, and emotional dysregulation within an overarching model of metaphor-based teaching. This program will be an adaptation from an existing behavioral health program piloted by a lead health psychologist and coaches from SWB, a sports-based development program working with immigrant and refugee youth in Oakland. In the original behavioral health program, SWB coaches worked with young players to create parallels between a well-known activity – in this case soccer – and difficult experiences in life relating to mental health. Coaches used soccer metaphors to create a shared language around how to talk about life stressors and provided behavioral health skills to assist youth in navigating these stressors successfully. Through this method, players were able to better conceptualize abstract ideas such stress, anxiety, and pressure by starting with the enjoyable context of soccer. Furthermore, youth participants demonstrated the ability to express mental health issues in other settings (e.g. school, home) by use of soccer metaphor and were then able to use behavioral health skills delivered by coaches to cope with stressors more effectively.   By translating this design to play-activities tailored to a wider group of school-based individuals, we aim to create a similarly accessible approach to understanding and managing mental health for children who may not otherwise receive mental health support. This program is planned to be a multi-week curriculum of regularly scheduled lessons for a consistent group of students, with lessons conducted by a combination of coaches, teaching staff, and BCH-Oak pediatric residents. The development and implementation of the pilot program will inform future iterations to ensure sustainability and effectiveness over time.   ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES:   We anticipate that our pilot curriculum will improve access to and understanding of mental health care with measurable improvements in knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to mental health.  

Project Goal

The overarching goal of this project will be to bridge the gap in mental health support for children in these communities by providing accessible, affordable, and culturally relevant behavioral health interventions to children and youth within immigrant and refugee communities in Oakland. 

Project Objective 1

By the end of the third quarter of the project period, the curriculum for each session will be drafted.

Project Objective 2

By the end of the project period, at least 8 children/youth will participate in 50% of sessions 

Project Objective 3

During the project period, at least 50% of participants will show positive changes in their knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to mental health 

AAP District

District IX

Institutional Name

UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland

Contact 1

Daniel Park, MD