Cambridge Youth Explore Mental Health Careers Through ACCESS

This summer, more than 1,000 Cambridge teens participated in the Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program (MSYEP), an annual 6-week program that places Cambridge residents ages 14 – 19 at paid summer jobs across Cambridge and surrounding communities. This year’s program spanned more than 100 job sites focused on a range of experiential learning including arts and theater, administrative duties, landscaping and maintenance, STEAM career exploration, media production, work with older adults and children, public safety, and more.

One of the MSYEP programs, via a partnership with the Cambridge Community Center, (Mental Health ACCESS - Advancement of Culturally Competent Education to Stop Stigma), gave Cambridge youth an opportunity to learn about careers in mental health and combat stigma in the field. 

ACCESS was founded in 2019 with the intention of reducing stigma around mental health treatment in communities of culture while helping teens of color find role-models in mental health careers, a field they are often underrepresented in. As part of this, the program regularly brings in professionals in various mental health careers to share their journeys and experiences.

“Our hopes are that the youth that enter this program will learn a little bit more about the field in general, but also get a role model to see, ‘maybe I can be a psychologist or a therapist or a social worker,’ because they have an example that looks like them,” said Capryce Browne, ACCESS program director.

Youth in the ACCESS program also explore the ways mental health and psychological themes intersect with various other areas, including physical fitness, STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics), and community engagement. To this end, they frequently collaborate with other groups in the community, such as 2B-Epic and Hip Hop Transformation. Additionally, the program has expanded in the past two years with another ACCESS cohort in Boston through Freedom House.

Christie Lebon, a student participating in ACCESS this summer, reflected on her favorite part of the program, saying she especially enjoys meeting professionals in different fields of psychology.

“I like it when they have guest speakers come in. It’s really fun when they tell us their story, and I think it’s just interesting, overall,” she said.

In addition, the program strives to make learning about mental health careers accessible to students of various learning styles. Students often have the opportunity to practice important career skills, such as communication, making a sales pitch, and projecting one’s voice, through collaborative games—a highlight of the program for many participants.

“My favorite part is probably when we do the games together. That’s really fun,” said Taliyah Delma, a student participating in ACCESS this summer.

The framework behind the ACCESS program includes a focus on exploring and tackling the systemic disparities that exist in the field of psychology. Ms. Browne explained that exposing students to mental health careers and resources can be a valuable way to give back to the community, especially for students who may be struggling with their own mental health and access to resources themselves.

“I think we’re really deliberate in thinking about what disparities exist, and how do we solve them in a way that is on the ground, but also tackles some of the bigger, institutional, systemic disparities that we’re seeing,” Ms. Browne said. “We really focus on Black and Brown students, and we can see that there are some barriers in terms of culture and language that may prevent people, especially in this age group, that need it from accessing resources or even thinking their individual struggles are well known or can be understandable by people in the profession.”

To Ms. Browne, it is especially meaningful to her to watch the youth participating in ACCESS grow as individuals as they learn more about possible career paths for their future. She expressed that this program helps fill a gap in access for information that previously existed for Cambridge teens.

“It’s really rewarding to see them all come in with different baseline understandings of mental health, physical health, and psychology, and then see them all leave with a different understanding, but more importantly, learning more about their own self and their own culture,” she said.

The goal of the Mayor's Summer Youth Employment Program is to serve as a young person's first job experience and exposure to the world of work. The program is open to Cambridge residents ages 14 through the summer after completing high school.

Teens are placed in public sector and non-profit jobs throughout Cambridge and in surrounding communities for six weeks during the summer. They work 20 hours a week and are paid minimum wage by the City. Nearly half of the youth are placed in Summer Work and Learning sites, which offer participants a valuable educational and employment experience using the community’s resources to expose youth to potential educational or career paths.

To learn more about the program, visit www.cambridgema.gov/MSYEP.