Yuma youth mental health forum set for Saturday at AWC

Parents trying to help teenagers through anxiety, depression and other mental-health struggles will have a local place to turn Saturday when Rural Arizona Action Advocates hosts a youth mental health forum at Arizona Western College in Yuma. Organizers Jorge Flores and Oscar Peña discussed the event on What's Up Yuma, framing it as a community conversation aimed at breaking stigma and pointing families toward concrete help.

The forum comes as local groups say mental-health awareness, early intervention and access to care remain pressing issues in Yuma County. The Yuma County Anti-Drug Coalition says its Mental Health Coalition is focused on breaking down stigmas, providing resources and fostering open discussion about mental well-being, with members drawn from schools, providers, youth, parents, healthcare, media, law enforcement and government.

Arizona Western College already has a support system in place for students across Yuma, Somerton, San Luis and Parker. Its Health and Wellness office coordinates programming on behavioral health, violence prevention and healthy lifestyle choices, and it offers free teletherapy through BetterMynd along with 24/7 virtual mental-health care through TimelyCare. Students can request help by emailing Health.Wellness@azwestern.edu or calling 928-344-7602, and AWC's crisis guidance page lists emergency and after-hours mental-health and safety resources, including campus police and crisis hotlines.

The college has also leaned into prevention before. AWC hosted QPR Suicide Awareness and Prevention Training in Yuma on April 15, 2020, and partnered with Arizona Complete Health for a virtual QPR session in April 2021, signaling an ongoing focus on intervention before a crisis escalates. That history matters in a state where Arizona's 2024 Adolescent Mental Health Report drew on Youth Risk Behavior Survey and National Survey of Children's Health data, and a public summary of Arizona suicide data says rural counties had suicide rates almost twice those of urban counties in 2022.

For a county spread across rural communities and long drives between services, access can be as important as awareness. The forum at AWC should draw parents, students and school staff looking for practical answers, while student-led groups such as AWC Raza Advocates point to a broader effort to build communication, research, advocacy and public-speaking skills among young leaders in rural areas. In a region where help can be hard to find quickly, the forum is designed to connect families to it before a crisis deepens.