Chipping Away at Chinatown’s Mental Health Challenges

Pennsylvania Hospital is proud to have staff members devoted to supporting the health and wellness of others long after they have clocked out. While some volunteers champion missions that differ from their professional disciplines, others often take their daily work a step further. For Zheya (Jenny) Yu, MD, PhD, a clinical assistant professor of Psychiatry at PAH’s Hall-Mercer Community Behavioral Health Center, her knowledge of the pressing need for free and accessible mental health resources for Asian teens has led her to develop a weekly support group geared toward fostering peer-to-peer problem solving and conversation.

Back in 2012, Yu received a Penn Medicine CAREs grant that provided her with funding to develop mental health information sessions aimed at Philadelphia’s Asian communities, as well as training sessions for community leaders poised to help struggling families. With a bit of funding left over and an abundance of motivation, Yu was looking for a new outreach opportunity. When asked what sparked her to organize the support group, Yu admits that the story has “many layers, many levels.”

Given her focus on child and adolescent psychiatry, Yu has been growing increasingly concerned by the prevalence of mental health issues like depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation among adolescents across the country – a concern backed up by the fact that the American Academy of Pediatrics recently issued a call for annual, universal screenings for depression among children 12 and older. However, while worries about a stigma plague many children and teens struggling with their mental health, Yu notes that seeking treatment for these issues can be particularly challenging in many Asian communities. This reality became clearer and hit far too close to home when a local teenager tragically completed a suicide attempt at her daughter’s high school.

“There’s often a lack of resources because of cultural divides,” Yu said. “Many school counselors have reached out to me when they’re trying to connect with the families of Asian students who are struggling. There might be a language or cultural barrier, or they might just be having a hard time getting through to parents because of work schedules. As one of only a few Chinese speaking child psychiatrists in the area, I feel responsible to provide community support and to be an advocate, even if – or especially if – the majority of these kids aren’t going to make it into my office.”

The challenges that exist between the counselors Yu coaches and their students’ parents tend to mirror communication divides between the kids themselves and their parents, especially when there are acculturation differences. Yu recognized that while offering her expertise and guidance was needed, it would be far more beneficial to provide a safe, non-judgmental, and less clinical environment in which adolescents could forge meaningful connections with each other based on shared experiences.

Yu shared her concept for a peer support group with her former colleague Helen Luu, LCSW, who spearheaded Hall-Mercer’s Southeast Asian Blended Case Management Program and recently retired. While that innovative, multilingual program has been a wonderful resource for Southeast Asian adults with a range of mental illnesses and developmental disabilities, its scope does not include adolescents, and Luu shared Yu’s enthusiasm for setting up a new group to meet that need.

Drawing off Luu’s established contacts in Chinatown, they established a partnership with the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation (PCDC)’s teen program, which seeks to provide Asian students from a variety of backgrounds with the opportunities to become leaders in their communities and to establish their own cultural identities. Yu’s daughter has taken advantage of the program’s free SAT prep classes, so it just took a few conversations with PCDC leadership for the organization to see that their emphasis on youth empowerment could be taken another step further by hosting a dedicated group for adolescents struggling with mental health challenges, academic pressures, social anxieties, family issues, and other problems.

Using the leftover funding from her previous CAREs grant, Yu provide dinner and tokens so participants don’t have to worry about hunger or transportation and can instead focus on the conversation. Each Tuesday night, the group tackles subjects including anxiety, bullying, self-esteem, sexuality, social media, overcoming failure, maintaining healthy sleeping and eating habits, and other topics set by Yu, but the kids are also given the chance to vent, share their struggles and successes, and work through problems with peers who genuinely understood the complexity of their situation.

“They have the chance to talk to peers who are on the same level as them,” Yu said. “I might not be much help if an individual isn’t sure whether or not to go to the prom, but together, they can go over the pros and cons and approach the issue with a better level of understanding than I could. Ultimately, the goal of the group is to help these kids achieve a level of harmony in their lives.”

Though the group is still in the early stages, it’s gradually growing through the promotion of the PCDC and Yu’s high school counselor network.

“Jenny really is a remarkable person,” said Laura Lombardo, manager of Community Relations. “She is uses her expertise even away from Pennsy to improve the quality of life for members of the local community. She sees a need, sees how she can helpful, and takes action. This makes her and her work so very valuable to Penn Medicine, to our city, and to all the families she has helped.”