Jennifer De Leon graduated top of her class from Palm Desert High, but when it came to applying to college, the world seemed to collapse around her.
“I would always go to the next highest level,” he said. “Honours, Advanced Placement. Then I broke down.”
“I wasn’t in good shape,” De Leon added. “It was just too dark. Everything was pointless.”
He started taking pills from his parents’ medicine cabinet and was hospitalized after drinking a bottle of liquid Tylenol.
De Leon, who turned 20 in December, has been receiving treatment from Riverside University Health System Behavioral Health for over a year since then.
During this time, while barely getting out of bed, he began to hold a job and re-establish relationships with his parents and friends.
He was “feeling better” during an interview this fall, but was grappling with some things, including what he called his “hard perfectionism.”
What changed the rules was Desert FLOW, an outpatient youth mental health clinic and resource center that opened in La Quinta in 2017 and caters specifically to people ages 16 to 25.
But you probably won’t hear staff describe Desert FLOW that way. They are told to avoid using words like “patient” and “clinic”.
The staff make the place feel more like a clubhouse. It is a space where teenagers and young adults can get together to play, do yoga, do arts and crafts and cook, and receive individual, group or family therapy. “FLOW” stands for fun, love, opportunity and health.
In addition to providing psychiatric and continuing mental health services, staff help connect young adults, including De Leon, to housing and employment resources, life coaching and legal services as needed.
Alisa Huntington, Head of Behavioral Health Services, explained that there is no front desk to keep the air informal, and that young people can “leave” to use the common areas as they please.
Desert FLOW is one of three transition-age youth centers managed by the University of Riverside Health System. Others are at Perris and Riverside.
About 150 to 200 “TAYs” use a variety of services through their La Quinta location, as Huntington and others call transitional youth. Huntington said about half of them interact with the center within an average of a week.
Traditionally – and in most cases legally – age 18 is a strict distinction between treatment as a teenager and an adult. TAY centers aim to facilitate the transition to adulthood of adolescents who need access to mental health care and social services.
“Turning 18 shouldn’t be a crisis,” Huntington said. “Part of the problem facing TAY centers was that people often fall into the cracks of behavioral health by the time they turn 18.”
Centers like Desert FLOW aim to fill this gap.
“If we can ensure that adolescents have access to services when they turn 16, we can prepare them for age 18,” Huntington said.
He explained that many adolescents are labeled as adults but lack the necessary skills and resources for independent living, a gap often exacerbated by mental health diagnoses.
“Our goal is for TAYs to be able to live independently, on their own or with their families, and achieve more of their life dreams, maintain employment and have a solid support group,” Huntington added.
According to the American Psychiatric Association, 50% of mental illnesses begin at age 14 and 25% begin at age 24.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, the brain is not fully developed until the mid to late 20s.
Across the country, mental health problems for adolescents have worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, with many experiencing feelings of isolation and hopelessness.
Locally, Huntington said he has seen an increase in suicide attempts and suicidal ideation that continues to rise.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s slowing down. It’s still going on,” Huntington said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2021, more than a third (37%) of high school students reported having poor mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic, and 44% reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless over the past year. Prevention data.
“Isolation definitely played a role in how I felt,” De Leon said. “Even when I hated school, I felt the joy of seeing my friends like a breath of fresh air.”
The high-performing student said she believes the stress of academic excellence plays a role in mental health disorder and that COVID-19 health and safety protocols are likely making things worse.
But their struggles were nothing new.
De Leon said that at the age of 10 he realized he was struggling with perfectionism. When things didn’t work out—especially in the classroom where he always excelled—he got angry with himself and sometimes bumped into objects.
“I don’t do that anymore,” he said.
Over the years, De Leon said she’s developed coping mechanisms to deal with her emotions, including following a routine.
Then the pandemic changed everything.
There was no more going to school. No more meeting friends for lunch. No more face-to-face extracurricular activities.
“My routine is broken,” he said.
Added to this was the stress of applying to universities.
“It felt very black and white to apply,” De Leon said. “As if there was a right choice and a wrong choice.”
The anxiety of all this weighed on him until he collapsed.
“I knew things were going to get worse,” he said.
But now, De Leon feels things are getting better. Thanks to Desert FLOW, he started to create a new routine.
Participates in daily activities with peers. Sometimes they focus on music or crafts. She was attending a yoga class taught by a volunteer instructor at the center when Desert Sun met her. Five or six more TAYs participated.
The lesson started about an hour later than scheduled because a bus that took TAYs from all over the Coachella Valley to events in La Quinta was late. But for some young adults living in Desert Hot Springs or Mecca, it would take longer to get to La Quinta on the SunLine bus.
Huntington’s headquarters is designed to serve everyone from Desert Hot Springs to Mecca.
Desert FLOW has a total staff of close to 20, including psychiatrists, nurses, clinicians, advocates and peer support specialists. Peer support professionals are certified professionals with lived experience in overcoming the most common mental health and addiction issues faced by adolescents and young adults. There is a peer support specialist assigned to each TAY at Desert FLOW.
“As a TAY-year-old person, I had some depression and anxiety, but I didn’t know what I was going through,” said peer support specialist Javier Sanchez.
Years later, Sanchez offers advice to young adults to help them understand their feelings and find purpose.
As for De Leon, he is still unsure of his aspirations.
But his progress is undeniable.
“We have success stories like Jennifer in almost every field, and seeing her grow from there into a fully-functioning young person with a job that has a social relationship with her parents – well, that’s huge.” said Huntington.
For more information on Desert FLOW, visit www.rcdmh.org or call (760) 863-7970.
Jonathan Horwitz covers education for The Desert Sun. Reach him at [email protected] or @Writes_Jonathan.
