Techie student team uses skills to connect youth, young adults with mental health services

The city of San Jose launched a new community-build mental health platform on Friday that helps youth and young adults to find services.

OneSJ, a website offered in English, Spanish and Vietnamese, lists mental health services both in the city and throughout the Bay Area. It allows users to filter services by categories like domestic violence, unhoused, LGBTQIA and student.

Clay Garner, the city’s deputy chief innovation officer, said:

“This is a for us, by us approach to building better digital services in the public sector.”

OneSJ is the first product to launch from the Digital Action Corps — an initiative from the Mayor’s Office of Technology and Innovation that works with technologically inclined high school- and college-level students to create digital solutions for pressing city challenges.

Currently, four San Jose State University students/alumni sit on the Digital Action Corps, which provides students interested in tech with mentorship to help fulfill career goals.

City spokesperson Gina Rodriguez said:

“They ultimately identified the problem (youth/young adult mental health crisis), designed the solution, and built the website. … The SJSU team volunteered their talent and time to support San Jose in a time of need.”

The students are SJSU graduate Justin Mata, graduating senior Angela Pham, graduating senior Flor Sario and undergraduate student Kunwarpreet Singh.