LYNNWOOD — Community partners gathered at the Lynnwood neighborhood center Thursday for a conversation about youth mental health in south Snohomish County.
The event was hosted by Verdant Health Commission, also known as Snohomish County Public Hospital District No. 2, which serves south Snohomish County. The organization owns the Swedish Edmonds building and uses its lease and levy revenue to fund programs in the area. Verdant’s main priorities currently include youth mental health and access to direct healthcare services, said Carolyn Brennan, president of Verdant Health Commission.
“I’m sure many in the room can relate to the sentiment that if one of our children or loved ones was struggling with mental health, we would move heaven and earth to get them the support they need,” Brennan said. “This sentiment, coupled with data showing that more than 25% or our young people report being anxious, depressed and lacking in hope has led the Verdant commissioners to prioritize this critical community meeting.”
From February to May, Kathy Solberg, a consultant hired by Verdant, conducted interviews with 127 community members about youth mental health in Snohomish County. She presented her findings Thursday. The interviewees ranged from youth and families to medical and governmental organizations. Solberg identified six areas where all the groups converged regarding the underlying issues, the programs that are working and potential solutions. Ideas included an emphasis on peer support, challenges navigating the system, the stress of mental health on emergency departments and how poverty exacerbates behavioral health challenges.
Intervention as early as possible is essential, said State Rep. Lauren Davis, D-Shoreline, in the event’s keynote speech. More than 90% of adults who have substance use disorder began using their substance before the age of 18, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Half of all mental health conditions begin by age 14, and 75% begin by age 24, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Davis shared her lived experience with adverse childhood experiences, or particularly traumatic events that occur before the age of 18. Data shows that the more adverse childhood experiences children go through, the more likely they are to attempt suicide, develop depression or use alcohol and drugs, Davis said. Davis said she experienced six adverse childhood experiences, including having a parent with substance use disorder and another parent who was arrested and jailed.
“I was able to go to college and be a Fulbright scholar, and live in West Africa, and get elected when I was 32 as the youngest woman in the state Legislature at the time,” she said.
The reason for that, Davis said, was because she had a consistent caring adult in her life in her grandmother.
“The reason that’s relevant is we can manufacture that,” she said. “There is an opportunity — whether it’s through mentoring programs, or through making sure even every child in the school building has one adult. I don’t care if that’s the school bus driver, I don’t care if it’s the cafeteria staff, one person where they feel connected, that makes them feel special, that makes them feel both completely loved and completely known. We can do that here in this community.”
Having a caring support network is one of the solutions Solberg identified in her interviews. Cultural organizations, including the Latino Educational Training Institute, Washington West African Center and the Korean Community Service Center have good support networks and are in high demand, she said. The Korean Community Service center has such high demand that it currently has a waitlist, Solberg said.
Another theme identified in Solberg’s interviews was that children can’t be served in isolation, and connecting with families is important. Programs cited by community members as helping families included Family Resource Advocates in the Edmonds School District and the state’s Wraparound with Intensive Services program. Davis mentioned the county’s cooperative preschools through Edmonds College, which provide college credits to parents for attending school with their children and learning parenting skills.
Many community members expressed their desire for a central navigator to connect youth with mental health services.
Wally Webster is the founder of the Association for Collective Community Engagement on Safety and Security, better known as the ACCESS Project. The organization aims to address the navigation issue by connecting south Snohomish County youth who have behavior health challenges to local resources.
“Many of the families and youth get stuck in navigating this system,” Webster said in a panel discussion at Thursday’s event. “They have a very difficult challenge of knowing where to go, and especially those youth and families that are struggling with various types of behavior. They might go to one office and find out that that is the wrong office to go to … and then they don’t know where else to go.”
Another large challenge speakers addressed was a shortage of behavioral healthcare workers. Jennifer McKay, manager of behavioral health at Swedish Edmonds, said she received a 50% pay raise when she moved from community mental health to Swedish Edmonds.
“That felt awful for me because I love community mental health, and I never for a moment doubted that the people that were running the organization I worked for valued the work I was doing, valued the clients that I was working with,” she said. “Working in community mental health or other nonprofit organizations should not feel like a charitable contribution. We have to find a way for our community mental health workers to earn a livable wage so they want to stay in the field.”
Speakers highlighted peer support programs, in which the people who provide support have lived experience with behavioral health. A state law passed in 2023 allowed for the state health department to certify peer specialists beginning in July 2025. Maria Coghill, director of behavioral health at Kaiser Permanente, said the organization will begin contracting with the state for peer support services July 1.
One intervention that community members said is working is having Community Health Center of Snohomish County mental health providers in local schools. Angela Alfieri is a CHC therapist embedded in Mountlake Terrace High School. CHC also has clinics at Cascade High School, Everett High School and Meadowdale High School.
“I wish there were more of me,” she said. “… I had about 70 students referred to me this past school year, and I met with almost all of them just to check in around mental health concerns, or what was going on, which is great, but also that just shows me the need is so high, and many youth are clamoring for a caring adult to listen to them and be there for them.”
Davis highlighted initiatives at the state level to address youth mental health, including the Community Prevention and Wellness Initiative, which focuses state resources on areas that have high rates of youth substance use. The program has several locations in Snohomish County, but none in south county. She also mentioned Washington Thriving, a state strategic plan for youth behavioral health.
“Nobody’s going to come talk to us in south Snohomish County and tell us how to do that here,” Davis said. “The answers to that are here in this room, and so I think there’s an opportunity to use that as a framework for us to build on.”
Following the panel and presentations, attendees met in groups to discuss the information presented and what the community can do moving forward.
“Whereas funding is important to this, it’s actually the people who make the change happen, and if you don’t have an ethic of challenge, of collaboration, of a deep heart for the people in this community, we will never realize our big vision of health and wellness for all,” said Alison Poulsen, superintendent of Verdant Health Commission.
Jenna Peterson: 425-339-3486; jenna.peterson@heraldnet.com; X: @jennarpetersonn.