About CAYEN
Who we are:
CAYEN represents Transition Age Youth (TAY) from across the state of California. These are youth and young adults ages 16-25 who have been touched by the mental health, juvenile justice, or foster care systems. These three groups of young people have many cross-cutting issues, so while CAYEN focuses on mental health policy we work with our partners to bridge the gaps between the three systems.
What we do:
CAYEN influences policy by engaging our all TAY Steering Committee, adult advisory committee, and other people from across the state that care about mental health for youth and young adults. With input from these important voices we advocate, engage in policy discussions, and participate in state level committees to ensure that the youth voice and youth needs are included in all policy decisions around mental health services for TAY.
Our TAY Steering Committee holds monthly phone calls, several in-person meetings, and an annual retreat to discuss relevant policy topics and projects as they relate to mental health for youth and young adults. Our Steering Committee members are also actively involved in their local communities, through working in mental health agencies, engaging in their county stakeholder process, and chairing TAY mental health policy groups.
Our staff travels the state to engage in local conversations about how counties are engaging TAY in policy and program decisions, meet the people developing new and exciting ideas, and to share promising practices. As an organization we hope to promote cross-county, cross-agency, and intergenerational learning with the goal of working together to create the best policies, programs, and practices for TAY across the state.
Why we do it:
Historically, services in California were designed for either children or adults. However, the mental health community has recognized that there is an important time in life where people are transitioning from being a child, into being an adult, and that youth need services designed around this life transition. We have also learned that to create the best programs and policies, we have to ask the people who will be impacted by them. CAYEN works to bring the voice of youth and young adults who are impacted by the mental health system into policy and program design at the state level.