Re-conceptualizing mental health
mental illness
SAID
Across interviews, youth participants shared that Agenda Gap contributed to new and expanded understandings of mental health, as they were encouraged to connect program concepts and apply them to their everyday contexts. Specifically, youth identified the importance of recognizing mental health as a positive concept, distinct from mental illness. One youth related, “While this shift in understanding mental health was not well reflected in the knowledge assessment survey data, the qualitative data underscore substantial gains in youths' understanding and application of this new knowledge. Indeed, these new understandings extended youth participants' conceptualizations of mental health as an outcome of individual characteristics to also include the role of social and structural conditions, including positionality and inequities. One participant said she came to understand, “As these youth participants' words so powerfully convey, and as is echoed in the quantitative results, there were pronounced shifts in mental health-related knowledge and critical consciousness as a result of Agenda Gap – providing new understandings that are informing how these youth think about and consider possible action to strengthen mental health.