Universal Youth Mental Wellness Supports: North Carolina
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Method: Design, Test & Scale
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Impact Area: Improving Mental Wellness
Meeting Students Where They Are:
Informed by its Mental Wellness Through Schools work in South Carolina, CaroNova is working with North Carolina state and community leaders (the Plan Steering Committee, or PSC) on a multi-year, multi-stakeholder process to align and strengthen North Carolina’s youth mental health system so that all youth have the mental health and wellness supports they need to thrive. Key to this work is establishing schools as primary sites of action for connecting youth to those supports. Also fundamental to the North Carolina strategy is centering youth voices in active design of solutions and connections to mental health supports through regional Youth Design Days.
Where We Are
- CaroNova supported the Plan Steering Committee through an exploration process, grounded in human-centered design, including a Youth Design Day in August 2025, to determine the greatest opportunity for improving youth mental wellness in North Carolina:
- Schools offer the greatest opportunity to reach youth and normalize mental health support.
- Current services are fragmented, overwhelming school staff and limiting access.
- Youth emphasized the need for accessible, normalized mental health and wellness support in schools.
- The PSC aligned its work to focus on a unified approach to developing universal mental wellness standards delivered through schools. This will be achieved by engaging partners and key stakeholders through a Continuum of Care Workgroup, Data Alignment Workgroup, and two Youth Design Days.
- CoC Workgroup: This workgroup will develop a universal mental wellness service array that ensures all youth receive the same supports through schools.
- Data Workgroup: This workgroup will develop an aligned strategic framework to interpret existing school-based data and help inform key partners on the biggest issues affecting youth mental wellness.
- Youth Design Days: These events are an opportunity for youth to share their perspectives and ideas on mental health supports in their communities.
Where We're Going
In 2026, CaroNova and its partners will:
- Define a school-based universal youth mental health service array
- Identify selected elements of that array for early testing and piloting
- Develop an aligned data strategy, for tracking and reporting on youth mental health, with key data partners and stakeholders
- Begin building out tracking and monitoring requirements for key components of the data alignment strategy
- Define long-term policy/regulatory priorities to improve access to school-based universal youth mental wellness supports
Our Partners
Seven Steps to Innovation & Impact
CaroNova’s approach to pioneering lasting real-world health solutions is systematic, research-driven, collaborative, and community-minded. We purposely identify opportunities where partners can work together to cultivate, co-design, and catalyze health improvements in the Carolinas through our process.
Opportunity Launch:
Engage those most impacted to inform and refine our opportunity for reform.
Resources
Plan Steering Committee Members
Youth Mental Health Opportunity Continuum Diagram
YMH Framework
YMH Patient Journey Map
The State of Youth Mental Health in the Carolinas (Executive Summary)
The State of Youth Mental Health in the Carolinas
Crisis in the Carolinas: A Framework for Youth Mental Health
Universal Youth Mental Health Supports-South Carolina
Featured Stories
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