2024 DMV Youth Assembly on Mental Health

Sign-up to take part in the Assembly!

Are you a Washington DC-area resident between the ages of 12 to 25?

Concerned about youth mental health and want to do something about it?

Then take part in the first DMV Youth Assembly on Mental Health!

Context

By several measures, the United States is undergoing a mental health crisis.  This is especially true for young Americans, who are experiencing higher rates of anxiety, depression, emergency room visits, and self-harm, including suicide.  Youth in America face an array of dangers, like bullying, sexual predators, gun violence, domestic violence, drugs, and else, yet collective youth deliberations are not commonly part of mental health or wider safety and security policy-making.  For these reasons, Learning Life, a Washington DC-based educational nonprofit, is organizing a Youth Citizen Assembly on Mental Health (hereafter, “the Assembly”) for motivated DC area youth ages 12 to 25 to be able to come together, learn, deliberate and propose policy solutions that could help improve mental health for young people in the DC/DMV metro region.

Citizen assemblies bring people together to learn, deliberate and propose policy solutions to challenges they face.  Such assemblies are held online and/or in-person, and have been used in a variety of countries, including the USA, to widen participation in policy-making at local to international levels in order to make government policies more representative of the informed views of their citizens.

Given time and budget constraints, the 2024 DMV Youth Assembly on Mental Health does not follow the strict citizen assembly model (e.g., random selection of participants, expert-paid assembly of the facts, multi-day deliberation).  However, it is intended to gather youth affected by policies on a matter of pressing public concern — mental health — to learn, discuss and draft policy solutions, with an eye to building local public support for more rigorous, representative, annual, youth assemblies in the DC region.  Over years, such assemblies should help inform a wider spectrum of young people in the DMV, socialize them as engaged, connected citizens, and increase their influence on government policymaking to cultivate greater trust and accountability.

About the Assembly

The Youth Assembly on Mental Health will occur on Saturday, October 26, 1-5pm, 2024 as part of the first DMV Democracy Festival, which concludes with a party at 5-6pm with a variety of tasty sweets, music, speakers and raffle prizes.  You do not have to do any homework to participate in the Assembly.

The assembly will proceed as follows:

1:00-1:30pm: Orienting remarks + participants complete pre-survey online via their phones, or on paper if no phone available.

1:30-2:30: Speakers present on the problem of, and ways to think about policy solutions to the U.S. youth mental health crisis.  Participants have the opportunity to ask questions with an eye to preparing for their policy deliberations.

2:30-3:30: Participants are randomly assigned to small groups and in their groups discuss, formulate and agree upon one to three draft policy proposals for school, city, county and/or state action to address youth mental health problems.

3:30-4:15: Participants reconvene as one large group to present their proposals, and ask each other questions about their respective proposals.

4:15-4:30: Each participant votes on all the priorities proposed, assigning a priority score of 1, 2 or 3 (1 is lowest priority, 3 is highest) to each proposal.

4:30-5:00: Concluding remarks + participants complete post-survey online via their phones, or on paper if no phone available.

Those youth who sign up for the Assembly will be guided in their learning and deliberation in both sessions by adult professional volunteers in mental health and other relevant fields.  After the Assembly, in December, a report on the Assembly, including the youth’s policy recommendations, will be shared with all those participating, as well as government officials and staff in the DC region.

If the 2024 Assembly is successful, pending funding, Learning Life aims to make youth assemblies an annual event coinciding with DemFest, that works to give regular, public voice to DC area youth on issues and policies that affect them.  This DMV youth assembly project is part of Learning Life’s wider DMV Democracy Learning Community, an association of DC area individuals and organizations working to make democracy more fun and inclusive by developing social events, products, services and spaces that entertain and nurture learning, networking, collaboration and wider, deeper citizen participation.

Requirements & Benefits