New Bay Area clinics provide mental health care, other services to youths

Phebe Cox grew up in what might seem an unlikely mental health danger zone for a kid: tony Palo Alto, in the heart of Silicon Valley. But behind its facade of family success and wealth, she said, is an environment of crushing pressure on students to perform. By 2016, when Cox was in middle school, Palo Alto had a teen suicide rate four times the national average. The idea struck a chord with Santa Clara County officials, who’d seen Palo Alto lashed by teen suicide clusters during the 2009-10 and 2014-15 school years. “The saddest part of the story is that a teen didn’t reach out earlier, didn’t have the opportunity to get help when and where they needed it,” County Supervisor Joe Simitian said in announcing Allcove’s opening in June. “The appeal of the Allcove model is it’s designed to engage young people who are struggling, long before they hit a crisis point.”