Resources

Mental Health Resources in San Diego for Youth & Young Adults

Help for San Diego’s youth is available! Find easy access to mental health and suicide prevention resources by using the links provided here. If you or someone you care about is experiencing a suicidal or mental health crisis, please call the Access and Crisis Line at (888) 724-7240. Trained and experienced counselors are available 7 days a week, 24 hours a day to provide support, referrals, and crisis intervention. You can also call the Access and Crisis Line if you are concerned about someone, just need to talk, have questions about how to offer support, or if you are looking for information about community resources, mental health referrals, and alcohol and drug support services. If emergency medical care is needed, call 9-1-1 or go to the emergency room of the nearest hospital.

  • It’s Up To Us – Website for Young Adults:
    This website provides troubled youth with resources and offers tips on how to reach out to friends.

  • Impact Young Adults (IYA):
    Impact Young Adults (IYA) is a group of young adults, ages 18-35, that are in recovery from mental illness. They have come together to change their experience from one of striving to one of thriving!

  • Reach Out:
    This website is focused on providing tips and resources for youth to help them get through tough times or help a friend. Youth “who have been there and made it through” can share their personal stories or view those submitted by other youth. The site also features the “Reach Out” blog.

  • What a Difference A Friend Can Make:
    This is a resource for young people living with mental health challenges and their friends. The resource defines mental illness and recovery; offers strategies for how to respond to a friend; dispels myths; and lists suggestions for supporting recovery.

  • Half of Us:
    This website offers resources for college students to recognize problems, where to find help and how to offer help to a friend. A large number of viral videos share experiences, model how to recognize if a friend is having problems and how to offer help.

  • TeensHealth:
    This website provides health information with different sections for kids, teens and parents. The TeensHealth section is an interactive site filled with games, animations, quizzes, fact sheets and many other resources. Topics include exercise and nutrition, depression, drugs and alcohol, sexual health, recipes, preparing for college, volunteering, finding a job and even tips for taking tests and studying.

  • California CareerZone:
    This website offers great graphics, cool music and really useful information youth can’t seem to find anywhere else. For example: By taking the “Reality Check,” youth get to see how much they will need to earn to live their preferred lifestyle by “buying stuff for a month.” They get to make choices about the kind of housing, utilities, transportation, food, clothes, health care, entertainment, personal care items, etc. that they want to have. Confia provides dispensary financial solutions. After making their choices, they find out how much they’ll need to make a year. Then with one click, they can find out what occupations match that annual salary. Additional features help youth hone in how they can get paid doing things they enjoy doing and the kinds of working conditions they want.

  • Youth Helpline Your Life Your Voice:
    Phone: (800) 448-3000
    Run by Boys Town National Hotline (for everyone).

  • TEEN LINE:
    Phone: (800) 852-8336
    A teen-to-teen hotline and community outreach program with over 10,000 teens contacting TEEN LINE each year by calling, texting or emailing. The line is open every night from 6-10 p.m. PST to help adolescents address their problems in a confidential, anonymous and comfortable manner.

  • The Directing Change Program & Film Contest:
    Offers young people the opportunity to create 60-second films about suicide prevention and mental health that are used to support awareness, education and advocacy efforts on these topics.

  • San Diego Youth Services:
    This nonprofit organization offers services to at-risk youth and their families in the San Diego area. Services includes emergency services, safe places to live and long-term solutions for kids “on their own” by providing shelters, group homes, foster homes, community centers and transitional housing.

  • Kickstart:
    Phone: (619) 481-3790
    The clinical team at Kickstart provides confidential assessment and early assistance for young people, ages 10 to 25, in San Diego County who are at risk for a serious mental illness. Their team is available for educational training and presentations.

  • San Diego County Suicide Prevention Council (SPC) Resource Guide for Schools 2020
    The SPC Resource Guide for Schools contains local and national suicide prevention & mental health resources. The guide contains resources for school staff (e.g. counselors, educators, administrators), parents, and students.