Coordinated Children’s Services Initiative - Vibrant Emotional Health : Vibrant Emotional Health

Emotional and mental health are essential to our overall well-being, helping us to achieve our goals, form meaningful relationships, take pleasure in activities, and enhance our physical health. The Coordinated Children’s Services Initiative (CCSI) partners with families, youth, government agencies, and community providers in NYC to ensure mental, behavioral, and emotional health needs are met.

Understanding the barriers and gaps in services requires representation from all people, programs, and providers involved. CCSI advocates for youth and family involvement in service planning, addresses multi-agency challenges, and promotes system-wide change through Youth Advisory Councils, Borough Based Councils, and the Citywide Oversight Committee.

Youth Advisory Council

The Youth Advisory Council (YAC) is a space created for youth, by youth with a variety of lived experiences in systems—mental and behavioral health, child welfare, juvenile justice, and others. YAC collaborates with city and state leaders and community supporters to improve the lives and situations face by youth in mental and emotional health systems.

We need you! Your experiences with the New York City education system, mental health providers, foster care, juvenile justice, and other child-serving systems give you special insights into what works, what doesn’t work, and what can be improved. We need you to share your voice so that we can support advocacy efforts to ensure that all child and youth-serving systems are meeting the needs of those who are being served by them. Your voice and input will inform policymakers and community service providers about the challenges and barriers to providing the best supportive programs for children and young adults.

Join us! Meetings are held every first Thursday from 3-5pm via Zoom. Click for our calendar with registration links.

Go to Youth Advisory Council

Borough Based Council Meetings

Borough Based Council Meetings (BBC) are monthly meetings for family members and service providers across all service systems to share information and resources and to identify local solutions to service delivery issues. It’s a space for family members and youth to bring their thoughts and concerns about child, youth and family services to the table, and to identify gaps in service and cross-systems issues that require problem-solving at the city or state level.

We need you! You are one of the most important voices that informs policymakers and community service providers about the challenges and barriers to high quality services for children and young adults.

Join us! Meetings vary per borough. Click for our calendar with registration links for The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island.

Go to Borough Based Council Meetings