CHANGE SF interns will be able to work across all UCSF campus locations, including Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital, the San Francisco Veteran Affairs Medical Center, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland, and the UCSF-UC Berkeley Schwab Dyslexia and Cognitive Diversity Center. [Photo: Kehn Hermano | Pexels]
Mayor London N. Breed and UC San Francisco today announced the creation of Community Health Advanced by Next Generation Efforts in San Francisco (CHANGE SF), a new program that will provide paid work-based learning opportunities for youth and young adults in the fields of mental and behavioral health and psychiatry.
In partnership with Mayor Breed’s Opportunities for All initiative, UCSF’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences will place 8 to 10 youth and young adults ages 13 to 24 each academic year in internships that will provide hands-on experience in behavioral and mental health across a wide range of disciplines, including psychiatry, cognitive and learning disorders, social work, trauma recovery, substance use, and psychology.
“Representation is critical across all sectors of health care, but especially mental and behavioral health,” said Mayor Breed. “Too many of our young people are left out of the health care profession because they do not have the skills, education, and exposure at an early age to opportunities that can transform their lives. We are working to end that. CHANGE SF will connect youth in neighborhoods and communities that have historically lacked opportunity to careers right here in San Francisco.”
As part of the program, participants will be matched with a UCSF staff or faculty member for one-on-one mentorship in addition to an internship experience. Interns will have the opportunity to attend the UCSF Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Grand Rounds lecture series, research labs, and career panels; conduct informational interviews with staff and faculty; and observe consultations to community-based organizations. Interns will also gain first-hand experience in science communication and data visualization, skills that are valuable for anyone pursuing a career in health care research.
“At a time when our collective mental health has been taxed and our resilience tested, it is more important than ever to prepare the next generation of providers in mental health, and inspire youth to pursue the field,“ said Matthew State, MD, PhD, chair of the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and director of the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute. “We’re excited to work with and learn from these bright young members of our community.”
"CHANGE SF is an expansive medical exploration internship allowing our San Francisco youth to have strategic and inclusive engagement within multiple aspects of behavioral science as well as community health," said Nicole Elmore, Opportunities for All Senior Fellow and CHANGE SF coordinator.
Mayor Breed’s Opportunities for All initiative, launched in the summer of 2019, provides youth and young adults ages 13 to 24, particularly from low-income families or communities that have long faced barriers to economic inclusion, with paid, work-based learning opportunities. The goal of the initiative is to not only connect young people with jobs, but more broadly to provide jobs in high-opportunity industries including health care, tech, finance, and more, as well as to get them started on the pathway to long-term success with lifelong mentorships. Since its inception, more than 4,500 youth have participated in Opportunities for All.
“CHANGE SF offers young people a chance to build their skills and networks while preparing for their futures,” said Sheryl Evans Davis, EdD, executive director of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission. “The initiative also provides an opportunity to address economic and health disparities through paid work-based learning activities that aim to build pipelines and connect diverse communities with resources and information on mental and behavioral health.”
UCSF professor and CHANGE SF director Marina Tolou-Shams, PhD
Data show that more than 47% of adults with serious mental illness perceive an unmet need for mental health services, demonstrating an imperative to train more mental and behavioral health care professionals. Additionally, Black, Latino, and Asian communities are disproportionately impacted by mental and behavioral health disorders, but face greater disparities within the health care system due to discrimination from primarily white health care providers, lack of access to quality health care, and differences in insurance coverage. The CHANGE SF program aims not only to train more young people to become health care professionals, but to focus on hiring youth of color to remove the stigma around mental and behavioral health in communities of color and to create and implement culturally competent health care programs in these fields.
“Young people are our greatest compass in identifying needs and opportunities for workforce development, racial and health equity, and the elimination of stigma about mental illness,” said Marina Tolou-Shams, PhD, a professor in UCSF’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences who is leading the new program. “By mentoring and partnering with local youth, we can build a mental health workforce that is truly reflective of and responsive to our community.”
The first cohort of CHANGE SF interns will begin their internships in mid-November. Interns will be able to work across all UCSF campus locations, including Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital, the San Francisco Veteran Affairs Medical Center, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland, and the UCSF-UC Berkeley Schwab Dyslexia and Cognitive Diversity Center.
This upcoming cohort has been selected from this year’s Opportunities for All applicants. To apply for Opportunities for All, visit www.opps4allsf.org.
Further reading
- San Francisco Chronicle: There aren't enough mental health professionals despite a tsunami of need. Here's what San Francisco is doing about it.
- San Francisco Examiner: New San Francisco youth internship program focuses on mental health
About UCSF Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
The UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute are among the nation's foremost resources in the fields of child, adolescent, adult, and geriatric mental health. Together they constitute one of the largest departments in the UCSF School of Medicine and the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, with a mission focused on research (basic, translational, clinical), teaching, patient care, and public service.
UCSF Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences conducts its clinical, educational, and research efforts at a variety of locations in Northern California, including Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital; UCSF Medical Centers at Parnassus Heights, Mission Bay, and Mount Zion; UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland; Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center; the San Francisco VA Health Care System; UCSF Fresno; and numerous community-based sites around the San Francisco Bay Area.
About the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences
The UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, established by the extraordinary generosity of Joan and Sanford I. "Sandy" Weill, brings together world-class researchers with top-ranked physicians to solve some of the most complex challenges in the human brain.
The UCSF Weill Institute leverages UCSF’s unrivaled bench-to-bedside excellence in the neurosciences. It unites three UCSF departments—Neurology, Psychiatry, and Neurological Surgery—that are highly esteemed for both patient care and research, as well as the Neuroscience Graduate Program, a cross-disciplinary alliance of nearly 100 UCSF faculty members from 15 basic-science departments, as well as the UCSF Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, a multidisciplinary research center focused on finding effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and other neurodegenerative disorders.
About UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. UCSF Health, which serves as UCSF’s primary academic medical center, includes top-ranked specialty hospitals and other clinical programs, and has affiliations throughout the Bay Area.
