Mom partners with collaborative to address youth mental health
Mom partners with collaborative to address youth mental health
Twenty years ago, Jasmine Martinez began her career in behavioral health.
Little did she know her son would come to experience an extreme onset of mental health challenges as part of a rare genetic disorder.
“We moved here from New Mexico in 2015, and we moved here for — this is where some people kind of get a shocked face — the behavioral health system, in part,” Martinez explains.
In Washington, her son was seen at Seattle Children’s and MultiCare Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital. Though he would go on to require some of the most intensive inpatient and outpatient mental health care offered in the nation, Martinez is thankful for the exceptional care from Mary Bridge Children’s early on, and the care team’s willingness to learn together and try new things.
“I never could have imagined that I would return to the field with this sort of lived experience,” she says. “But I came back after a hiatus and advocating with and for my children.”
Collaborating to improve pediatric behavioral health care
Martinez now serves as a member of the Washington governor’s 1580 rapid care team, where she partners with parents and caregivers, system partners, agencies and organizations across the state to creatively support youth 17 and younger in crisis.
Her work has also brought her into Kids’ Mental Health Washington’s orbit, which grew from the best-practice model of Kids’ Mental Health Pierce County (KMHPC).
KMHPC and Youth Engagement Services team members with keynote speaker Lucas McIntyre, MD, and two summit sponsors.
In 2018, Mary Bridge Children’s Foundation heavily invested in this community collaborative, where multiple agencies, professionals and partners combine resources to improve child and adolescent mental health treatment and prevention.
The program has seen a 400 percent return on investment. Highlights from 2024 include:
- Connecting over 6,000 youth to resources
- Establishing timely aftercare for 1,805 youth discharged from Mary Bridge Children’s Emergency Department
- Training on behavioral health topics for 1,733 individuals across eight school districts
- Holding a school-based mental health summit with 166 attendees from 11 school districts and nine community organizations
- Facilitating more than 50 community multidisciplinary team (MDT) meetings
KMHPC 2024 school-based mental health summit.
Realizing that KMHPC would have been a game-changer for her family, Martinez seized the chance to join the movement. She’s actively participated in the coalition’s planning and implementation committees while regularly attending MDT meetings for several years.
“Knowing that something like Kids’ Mental Health is a group of volunteers who are experts in all these capacities in one space, who can hear a parent or caregiver youth story and then share ideas, resources with compassion, with warmth, with honoring the lived experience, is what makes every committee I’m a part of so valuable,” Martinez shares.
Stakeholders, providers & advocates team up for youth
Martinez describes the MDT process as an incredible opportunity for parents and caregivers to gain clarity around their child’s complex behavioral health presentations.
The hour-long meeting starts with a facilitator setting the tone for professionalism, compassion and inclusivity. After introductions, goal sharing and briefly hearing from the parent or caregiver about challenges and needs, the multidisciplinary committee asks clarifying questions before giving ideas and recommendations.
Notes are taken and emailed after, helping keep partners accountable and concisely outlining next steps for care coordination and case planning.
“I think MDT really cultivates a really beautiful environment for parents and caregivers to gain that support,” Martinez says. “I’m just completely impressed by the compassion and the nuance and the bringing together all the different resources.”
A supportive backbone for Pierce County and beyond
Since KMHPC’s founding, Mary Bridge Children’s has been the backbone, fostering collaboration, alignment, communication and progress toward the collaborative’s shared agenda, along with securing funding for initiatives and strategies through Mary Bridge Children’s Foundation. The foundation also applies for grants on behalf of KMHPC.
Martinez is grateful for the donors who have helped change the trajectory of behavioral health for children and youth in Pierce County and Washington state.
“Donors who are supporting this work — their fingerprints are on hopeful shifts happening in Washington, and it started with a seed through Kids’ Mental Health Pierce County,” she says. “Now those branches of hope are spreading through the entire state.
“I honestly am so grateful for people who are able to give in that capacity,” Martinez continues. “Anybody who can give and who has given to Kids’ Mental Health Pierce County, that’s a world-changing gift for sure.”
