Youth Move Nevada’s Brenna on Youth Advocacy, Mental Health Challenges, and System-Level Youth Voice

Host Carmen interviews Brenna, team facilitator and youth leader with Youth Move Nevada, about her path from working at Nevada PEP to youth advocacy, including how learning about disabilities led her to seek an ADHD evaluation and feel empowered by diagnosis and self-advocacy. Brenna explains Youth Move Nevada’s origins as a youth-voice program under Nevada PEP, its autonomy, and its goals: building youth self-advocacy skills, empowering youth-led change, and reducing stigma around mental health and disabilities for ages 14–24 statewide. They discuss Nevada’s mental health challenges, including ranking 51st, provider shortages, limited community-based services that can force out-of-state treatment, rural/frontier access barriers, siloed systems, and gaps in awareness, alongside a reported 2% state suicide-rate reduction. Brenna describes youth engagement methods (virtual meetings, polls, podcasts, social media, contests, panels) and system advocacy using the Youth Voice at Agency Level tool, work with UNR on needs assessments, and Medicaid workgroups shaping care coordination.

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro

01:04 Brenna Story and Lived Experience

04:23 ADHD Diagnosis and Empowerment

09:04 Youth Move Nevada Origins

12:05 Host Org and Autonomy

19:45 Who Can Join Youth Move

21:52 Mission and Core Goals

24:13 Nevada Mental Health Crisis

27:19 Rural Access and Out of State Care

33:31 Siloed Systems and Awareness Gaps

35:28 National Youth Mental Health Context

37:31 Why Nevada Ranks Last

38:23 Rural Frontier Reality

41:17 Isolation and Loneliness

45:15 Reaching Rural Youth

47:41 Everyday Youth Engagement

54:46 Youth Voice in Systems

57:33 YVAL and UNR Partnership

01:03:22 Medicaid Summit Impact

01:08:39 Chapter Growth and Contact