CARES: an innovative approach to treating adolescents with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders

ABSTRACT Born out of a recognition that minority youth have the lowest access to care and disproportionally high rates of related deleterious outcomes, the Comprehensive Adolescent Rehabilitation and Education Service (CARES) in the Mount Sinai Health System offers a novel solution. For the last 19 years, CARES has been treating adolescents and young adults (ages 14 to 21) – referred from across the five boroughs of NYC – with complex profiles of mental health, substance use, and education problems. What started out as two small grant funded programs has expanded to become a dynamic, multifaceted vehicle for empowerment, hope, and change for those individuals and families who have traditionally been underserved and unsupported by the healthcare system. Embedded within CARES is the mission and commitment to addressing mental health disparities among racial and ethnic minority youth across individual, community, and organizational levels. We, at CARES, recognize that mental health symptomology and adverse experiences rarely occur in isolation. Rather, what guides our treatment is the acknowledgment that the health and well-being of our patients is reliant upon a holistic conceptualization – one that honors the unique and diverse characteristics of adolescence and its inherent resilience.