Community Improvement Award

The Mental Health Monthly Community Improvement Award recognizes organizations and individuals whose work creates meaningful, lasting change in mental health by strengthening communities, expanding access to care, and improving lives.

We are honored to recognize Jewish Family Service of Colorado’s KidSuccess Program, a pioneering school-based mental health initiative that has supported children and families for more than three decades. By integrating licensed mental health professionals directly into schools, KidSuccess removes critical barriers to care and ensures that support reaches children early, consistently, and equitably.

Through this proactive and compassionate approach, KidSuccess has helped students build emotional resilience, improve academic engagement, and navigate challenges before they escalate. Their work stands as a powerful example of how accessible, community-centered mental health care can change outcomes not just for individuals, but for entire school systems.

Click below to read the full feature article and explore the lasting impact of the KidSuccess Program. 

The Community Improvement Award recognizes Indigenous Youth Services for its deeply intentional, community-rooted work supporting Indigenous youth and families.

Indigenous Youth Services exists to address a reality that many systems continue to overlook: Indigenous youth are too often removed, relocated, and institutionalized not because families lack care, but because systems lack culturally grounded, relational support. From its foundation, Indigenous Youth Services has operated with a clear mission: to keep youth connected to their families, cultures, and communities while providing practical, responsive mental health and behavioral support that meets families where they are.

Rather than relying on standardized or containment-focused models, Indigenous Youth Services builds care around relationship, understanding, and continuity. Their work recognizes that behavior is not the problem to be controlled, but information to be understood within cultural, familial, and historical context. This philosophy informs every service they provide.

Through programs such as CareLink, Indigenous Youth Services offers consistent guidance and continuity of care regardless of location or placement changes. Their individualized in-home behavioral supports are designed to strengthen families, not replace them, helping caregivers build confidence, structure, and capacity while maintaining safety and connection. Reunification-focused services prioritize preparation, stabilization, and relational repair so that returns home are thoughtful, supported, and sustainable.

What sets Indigenous Youth Services apart is not only what they provide, but how they provide it. Cultural respect is not treated as an add-on or consultation point. It is embedded into planning, communication, pacing, and decision-making. Emotional safety, dignity, and trust are treated as prerequisites for progress, not rewards for compliance.

The impact of this approach is tangible. Families experience greater stability, youth experience fewer placement disruptions, and caregivers report increased confidence and clarity. Perhaps most importantly, young people are supported in rebuilding identity, belonging, and agency in systems that have historically undermined all three.

Beyond individual outcomes, Indigenous Youth Services is quietly reshaping expectations around Indigenous mental health care. Their work demonstrates that when services are built around relationship, culture, and accountability, meaningful improvement is not only possible, but sustainable.

Indigenous Youth Services stands as a powerful example of what happens when care is designed with communities rather than imposed upon them, and when improvement is measured not just in reduced crises, but in restored connection, stability, and hope.