iGROW: community peer leadership

The Swensrud Depression Prevention Initiative (SDPI) of Children's Hospital Boston created a program to specifically address awareness of depression and other mental illnesses in adolescents as risk factors that may lead to suicide. The youth receive in-depth  training around mental health topics, help seeking and skill building.

The program, iGROW, is led by an interfaith coalition, clinicians from SDPI, and peer leaders.  iGROW is grounded in Bronfenbrenner's social ecological model, and informed by evidence found in the Child Health and Social Ecology (CHASE) project, where researchers demonstrated youth can successfully impart knowledge to their community, promote open and effective communication and reduce stigma.  The peer leaders are volunteers from an interfaith coalition.

The peer leaders and their respective congregations also host and facilitate community teen nights called "TEAGOTs" (Teens Enjoying A Good Ol' Time). Using the structure of the CHASE project and the recommendations for best practices from the prevention literature, the TEAGOTs follow a framework of four scaffolding modules. The themes of each module are: 1) building trust, community, and common voice; 2) understanding perspectives; 3) understanding and concept development focusing on specific mental health topics; 4) taking shared social action.  Each teen night incorporates psychoeducation and skill building in an interactive and creative way, planned and co-facilitated by the peer leaders.  Peer leaders further contribute by acting as liaisons in the community - sharing knowledge with peers, encouraging help seeking, planning parent events, and engaging community members to participate in iGROW. This model highlights youth as a critical means of engaging members of the broader community to take part in mental health prevention efforts.