In recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, we’re reflecting on what it truly means to support the whole child.

At StreetSquash, academic and athletic success cannot exist in isolation. When a student is navigating emotional, social, or systemic challenges, it impacts every part of their life, including their ability to thrive in the classroom, on court, and within their community.

That understanding is what shapes our holistic youth development model and why social work is not supplemental to our mission but vital to it.

To bridge these gaps, StreetSquash embeds mental health support directly into our day-to-day programming. Our social work department includes two full-time social workers supported by graduate-level interns, allowing us to provide completely free counseling, clinical case management, and targeted social-emotional learning workshops for middle and high school students.

While many youth programs recognize the importance of mental health, it is still uncommon for organizations to offer this level of integrated, wraparound care free of charge. By providing consistent access to licensed professionals within an athletic space, we aim to reduce barriers to care, address local inequities in access to mental health resources, and normalize seeking support from an early age.

This work is far more than athletics. It is about helping young people build resilience, self-awareness, and the confidence to navigate life beyond StreetSquash.

Hear directly from members of our social work team to learn more about how this model comes to life across our community!

Video Transcript:

Kylie VanLuvender (StreetSquash Social Worker): I think the fact that we can offer mental health therapy for no cost is extremely important.

Ameil Thomas (StreetSquash Student): I genuinely thought that this was just squash. And I was like, new to squash, so I didn’t know like that this came all in one package. And I’m very glad that everything, like, came out the way that it did. But I didn’t hear like much about social work. It just was like squash. And then when I, like, really started to get interested, then I met Kylie, and so many nice people, and then I really got to like, learn about the social life and the social work.

Kylie VanLuvender (StreetSquash Social Worker): We always do an intake with the student as well as the caregiver. So that’s an interview that just gives us some background about, one, the child’s mood, but also how they’re doing socially, in school, how they’re doing at home.

Ameil Thomas (StreetSquash Student): The one-on-one intake, it was definitely Kylie, for sure, because I feel like I always like—she just came out of nowhere and I just bonded with her. And as long as you have one trusted adult, I feel like that’s all you need, because it’s like she never—she gave me open, like, the space, open mind. She always let me talk and just feel free within my words and my speech.

Anthony Diana (StreetSquash Social Worker): We collaboratively decide that they could benefit from ongoing support. We would identify like, what are we hoping to accomplish here? Is it to just kind of have a consistent source of like, mental health support? Is there a specific challenge that they’re looking to work towards?

Ameil Thomas (StreetSquash Student): At first, I feel pent up for sure, because the way I cope with feeling a lot, I build it up, I let it build up, and that’s not very healthy. After I’m done, whether I felt it was positive or negative, I feel like it was still meant for me to feel, so I could just regulate my emotions again. And then just start building up the energy that you lost, you know?

Kylie VanLuvender (StreetSquash Social Worker): It takes time to, you know, grow rapport with the child and grow that relationship so that they feel safe and comfortable, and they know that, you know, they can trust you. We really start to like, dive into their past history and things that they want to work on.

Anthony Diana (StreetSquash Social Worker): In a given school year, the social work department as a whole will provide counseling to around 40 to 50 students.

Kylie VanLuvender (StreetSquash Social Worker): We also do group therapy. So right now we have a boys group and girls group. So in girls group, we’re able to just really give the girls some privacy to talk about female-related issues, to talk about things that they want to talk about, whether it be confidence or self-esteem.

Ameil Thomas (StreetSquash Student): When it was time for it to be girls group, it’s just basically us coming together and talking about how we felt. Like I feel like at first, it used to just be like a dump sesh, and we’d just talk about how we feel, just around the day. But I feel like the more we got into it, we like started to understand each other like from different points of view, and just understand how we truly are within ourselves. And then what we got going on in life, and that’s just how like we revolve around each other. So it’s like, it makes more sense of why you move that certain way that day, because you have so much going on in your life.

Anthony Diana (StreetSquash Social Worker): As a department, we try to make these workshops like, as fun as possible. You know, these are skills that are life skills, and they’re not necessarily academic skills. Being able to communicate clearly to my friend who upset me—those kind of interpersonal skills are very pivotal for them at that stage of their lives. The athletic environment is very competitive. Having access to mental health as part of their athletic development is also extremely valuable. Especially that, you know, they’re going into squash, which is a sport where many of them will look different than other people, and they’ll be dealing with a lot of challenges outside of just like the competition itself.

Ameil Thomas (StreetSquash Student): I think it’s very valuable that StreetSquash does have this social department because you don’t get it anywhere else. Here specifically, it gave me more of a, like, a reason to speak out and just speak louder. And it kind of makes me want to be like something in that like career when I grow up, you know? Anything to help anyone out or like, just to speak your mind. I feel like that’s important.

Kylie VanLuvender (StreetSquash Social Worker): It’s been really rewarding to see them, you know, start to integrate words of mental health in their daily conversations with their friends or with me, and just kind of breaking that stigma down of mental health and helping normalize it for them, and knowing that it’s—it’s okay to reach out for support. And it’s actually a sign of strength to reach out for support. Being able to see that, and being able to see how open they are to reaching out for support is just—it’s been awesome.