Your Partners for Transformative Change
Youth Wellness Coaches
C4’s innovative Youth Wellness Coach model is designed to address gaps in school supports by embedding near-age youth peer professionals in schools to deliver non-clinical behavioral health and other well-being initiatives.
With funding from the MA Department of Public Health, Bureau of Substance Addiction Services, Office of Youth and Young Adult Services, and in partnership with Harvard/MGH Center for Addiction Medicine and twenty schools throughout the Commonwealth, C4’s team of Youth Wellness Coaches began serving in schools in late 2023.
Youth Wellness Coaches are young professionals who bring the following specialized expertise to the role:
Near-age peers (19+), offering a powerful combination of near-peer, mentor, and trusted adult
Name and draw on lived/living experience in navigating behavioral health and well-being concerns, including substance use and mental health, to bring compassionate validation to the adolescent experience
Model strengths-based resilience, self-efficacy, and connection-building
Promote whole-person support and recognize the role of social determinants of health in driving health and wellness outcomes for youth
Youth Wellness Coaches conduct SBIRT (screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment) activities and deliver non-clinical interventions such as Project Amp and iDECIDE and support other school-based health and wellness initiatives.
In your school and community, Youth Wellness Coaches can perform the following duties:
Provide non-clinical behavioral health and wellness support and services.
Conduct Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) with adolescents.
Implement Project Amp, a strengths-based extended brief intervention designed for students experiencing any of a broad list of risk factors.
Support existing school or community wellness initiatives, such as violence prevention, vaping cessation programming, drug and alcohol education programming, wellness planning, community or parent engagement, LGBTQIA+ support, and other peer-based programming.
Remain embedded in the school and host organization but maintain organizational independence and support, which can enhance trust with students.
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Partner with C4 to create and foster programs and solutions where youth have access to opportunities to thrive and where they are active agents of their own futures.