How We Conducted Our Community Health Needs Assessment.
In 2024, the St. Louis County Children’s Service Fund (CSF) partnered with research and strategy firm Simply Strategy to launch a collaborative community health needs assessment. Together, our goal was to deepen our understanding of what works—and what’s still needed—to strengthen behavioral health for children, youth, and families across the St. Louis region. With the assistance of Simply Strategy, we gathered and reviewed existing data and spoke to more than 300 St. Louisans to learn what works and what’s needed when it comes to youth mental and behavioral health. See more about our process below.
Phase 1: Collecting Existing Data.
The first phase consisted of a literature review and analysis of epidemiological data and reports by healthcare, education, and justice systems. This gave us a general understanding of where we’re at in the region.
Phase 2: Talking With Our Community.
We hosted community conversations between February and June 2025 for four core stakeholders: mental health providers, educators, parents, and youth. These four groups are referred to throughout the report, but it is important to understand the diversity of roles within each group. For example, “parents” included caregivers beyond biological parents and people of varying backgrounds including those from immigrant communities; “educators” included administrative faculty and staff as well as classroom teachers; “youth” encompassed a range of ages and unhoused youth.
In total, more than 300 St. Louis participated in the community health needs assessment. We spoke with:
- 95 youth ages 11-19 over six community conversations (including one conversation with unhoused youth)
- 113 parents, including 34 from Afghanistan, Mexico and Latin American immigrant communities, in eight community conversations (three of which were conducted in languages other than English)
- 34 educators over six community conversations
- 74 mental health providers over three community conversations
In addition to group discussions, seven one-on-one interviews were conducted with representatives from juvenile justice, mental health advocacy, higher education, and K-12 school administration.
In our 2025 community health needs assessment, we heard 10 major themes impacting youth mental and behavioral health in St. Louis County.