Child and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative (CYBHI):
Public Education and Change Campaigns
Reduce stigma, increase help-seeking behavior and wellness support.
What is the CYBHI?
The goal of the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative (CYBHI) is to reimagine the systems that support behavioral health and wellness for California's children and youth into an innovative, up-stream focused ecosystem. This ecosystem focuses on promoting well-being and preventing behavioral health challenges, and routinely screening, supporting, and serving ALL children and youth for emerging and existing mental, emotional, and behavioral (MEB) challenges, including substance use disorders and wellness.
The initiative is designed and implemented in partnership with The California Health and Human Services Agency (CalHHS) departments, education community partners from early childhood, K–12 and higher education, other State agencies, subject matter experts, community partners on the ground and in the field, and children, youth, and their families. Focusing on prevention and early intervention can help reduce children and youth's risk of developing serious mental, emotional and behavioral challenges.
What is CDPH doing for the CYBHI?
CDPH is implementing a public education and change campaign that is co-designed for and by youth in order to raise behavioral health literacy among youth, caregivers, and their communities. The goal of the campaign is to reduce stigma around mental, emotional, behavioral health and substance use disorder and to increase help-seeking behavior and wellness support.
Community Engagement – Community Partners and Impacted Community
Prior to drafting the Solicitation, CDPH consulted with community partners to ensure the campaigns would be designed for and by youth.
What is Behavioral Health Literacy?
Behavioral Health Literacy is an awareness of behavioral health struggles without stigma. It is knowing when and where to seek help. CDPH recognizes that raising the health literacy of individuals must be paired with structural changes. The CYBHI as a whole is working to shift California’s behavioral health ecosystem.
More about Health Literacy
“The report also calls for an integrative approach to develop health literacy interventions that involve a range of community-based organizations, not just medical centers, including schools, churches, sports groups, and workplaces. For example, health literacy programs should be introduced in childhood and should be part of school curriculums. They should be designed and adapted to the needs of individual communities, through the involvement of local students and teachers. Ensuring health literacy must be a whole-of-society endeavor at the individual, community, and national level, and work across sectors, not just health.” -The Lancet, Editorial “Why is health literacy failing so many?” Nov 12, 2022. Vol 40, page 1655.
CDPH’S Campaign Goals:
Local Level Grantees – Public Education Change Campaign:
Through the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative (CYBHI), California has invested $25 million to partner with 28 Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) and Tribal grantees to lead Local Level Public Education and Change Campaigns. These initiatives go beyond simple awareness — they work to dismantle systemic stigma and build a lasting infrastructure for mental wellness by partnering with trusted local messengers who bring cultural and linguistic expertise to their own communities. Recognizing that mental health support cannot be a "one-size-fits-all" model, these grantees develop tailored messaging and programming designed to reach historically unserved, underserved, and inappropriately served communities where they live, learn, and gather — from barbershop talks and community festivals to culturally grounded tribal programs. By building this local infrastructure in California, CYBHI ensures that every young person has a connection to support that feels familiar, culturally relevant, and inclusive. Through reduced stigma and increased awareness of available behavioral health services, youth and caregivers are better equipped to seek services that are responsive to their needs.
Youth Co-Lab:
The CYBHI Youth Co-Lab (“YCL") serves as the strategic heartbeat of California's mental health efforts, consisting of 13 youth members and three youth leaders, ages 14 to 25, who act as primary thought partners for the state. These young leaders are far more than a focus group — they are contracted collaborators who influence every stage of the campaign process. By positioning youth as the primary decision-makers who drive their own narratives, the Youth Co-Lab ensures that all outreach remains authentic, peer-driven, and deeply connected to the real-world priorities of California's diverse communities, including those who have been historically underserved. This governance model is equity in action — because when young people are in the room making decisions real transformation follows. As youth ambassadors for the Take Space to Pause campaign, the Youth Co‑Lab ignite a statewide movement powered by trusted peer voices—young leaders who do not just shape the message, but inspire their communities to better understand their emotions, leading to an increase in help-seeking actions.
CDPH’s Youth Led Approach
Our youth and caregiver co-designed public education and change campaign focuses on reducing stigma, increasing awareness, and increasing help-seeking behavior. CDPH created the public education and change campaign with these values in mind: advancing equity, designing for youth by youth, centering children and youth, empowering caregivers and communities, and stigma reduction. CDPH aims to increase the behavioral health literacy of all Californians, with special attention to these five communities in order to reduce overall health disparities: African Americans/Black, Native Americans, Asians and Pacific Islanders, Latinos, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Questioning communities with special consideration for transitional-age youth, persons with disabilities, justice and foster care involved youth and those living in rural areas.
Youth Co-Lab
The Youth Co-Lab is an internal committee comprised of 12 youth (ages 14 to 25) and 2 youth leaders (ages 21 to 25) who will partner with CDPH-OHE for a co-designed three-year campaign. While all 14 youth members engage in content review, the leaders assist with operations, workshops, outreach, and recruitment in partnership with CDPH-OHE to codesign the CYBHI public education and change campaign. The Youth Co-Lab will ensure that the unique voices, needs, and ideas held by California’s youth are integrated into all aspects of the campaign.