Taking care of one’s mental health is an essential part of care that young adults are encouraged to do daily. Unfortunately, not every young adult has easy access to services to help care for their mental health, and they have to battle through these struggles daily without proper support.
It’s a constant sight at Elpis Enterprises with the young adults we work with as they can deal with a variety of issues from unstable housing, teen parenting, exiting foster care, and surviving on each day, living on their own. These circumstances often make it nearly impossible for young adults to find proper access to the mental health services they need.
Elpis wants to change that. In 2023, we received a small grant to conduct focus groups with our interns to find out what they saw as their needs and how their mental health needs could best be met. Those focus groups showed we need to convey to interns that addressing their mental health needs is as important as meeting their physical needs. They need and want a combination of individual sessions as well as a group education session. Our staff are not professional mental health providers. To provide these services, Elpis needs 80 to 90 hours of a mental health professional’s time to lead these sessions.
We need your support to make this a reality. Your donation of $25, $50, $100, $250, or any amount you choose to continue supporting these young adults. $25 gives one intern a 30-minute session with a professional therapist, $50 gives an intern a full-hour session with a therapist, $100 helps provide an hour of group therapy, and $250 provides training for our staff to be equipped in ‘mental health first aid’ so they know how best to respond when interns share their struggles with them or begin to melt down at work.
Mental health is a workforce issue. The absence from work due to any issues, mental health or otherwise, impacts an individual’s paycheck. Colleagues and employers can struggle to provide support while dealing with lost assistance and unplanned absences. Without the right support for these struggles, employment success and a sense of belonging within the community are difficult to achieve.
We ask for your support to help fund this new Elpis initiative. The more support our interns have for their mental health both inside and outside the workplace, the more successful lives they can live.
