Thrive Dispatches Creating Communities of Mental Health (with Dr. Susan Swick)
Oct 15, 2025
Dr. Susan Swick, Executive Director of the Ohana Center for Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health, shares her innovative approach to youth mental health on California's Monterey Peninsula. She emphasizes a community-centered model that integrates prevention and treatment, rejecting traditional hospital-centric methods. Dr. Swick discusses creating welcoming spaces to foster curiosity and reduce stigma. She highlights the importance of family involvement during crises and her vision for a holistic mental health ecosystem, offering valuable insights for systemic change.
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Career Pivot Toward Child Psychiatry
- Susan recounts shifting from intended obstetrics to psychiatry after reading and seeking work that gave her hope and meaning.
- She describes training choices (oncology interest, forensic fellowship) that ultimately pushed her upstream into child psychiatry.
From Local Program To $100M Opportunity
- Susan describes building a parent guidance curriculum and the Resilience Project to engage parents and schools in prevention work.
- She also tells how a recruiter email led her to discover a $100M philanthropic gift for youth mental health on the Monterey Peninsula.
Invest Upstream, Not Just More Beds
- Susan argued against building a locked inpatient unit and for a full outpatient continuum focused on early diagnosis and evidence-based care.
- She prioritized outpatient, intensive outpatient, and short-term residential options to treat dynamic needs without defaulting to hospitalization.
