When students at Rancho Cielo sat down to design their own peer-to-peer survey questions, they didn’t ask about academic stress or college applications. Instead, they asked about safety and conflict at home. That difference reveals why this partnership exists.
AIM Youth Mental Health and Rancho Cielo are proud to announce the completion of a 12-session AIM Ideas Lab, embedded directly into the school day at Rancho Cielo, bringing youth-led mental health research to students who have often been excluded from the conversation.
In Monterey County, young people are navigating economic instability, disrupted education, and limited access to mental health support. AIM Ideas Lab brought research-based mental health education and student-driven inquiry directly into that context. Rancho Cielo student researchers didn’t just learn about mental health; they questioned it, challenged it, and built solutions grounded in their lived experience.
“We never expect young people to arrive as finished experts. We expect them to grow, develop their understanding of the problem, and bring their own lived experience alongside the research skills AIM Ideas Lab gives them — and that combination is genuinely powerful,” says Jolie Delja, AIM Youth Mental Health Executive Director. “Working alongside Rancho Cielo to build this has been a joy for all of us at AIM.”
What emerged reflected priorities that rarely appear in traditional research: Students identified community safety and family struggle as central to their mental health, rather than the pressures typically studied in school-based research. They proposed peer support structures and communication tools specifically designed for Rancho Cielo students navigating instability outside the classroom.
Every session was co-facilitated by a Rancho Cielo mentor and an AIM mentor, a pairing designed to give students the consistency of a familiar face alongside a new relationship, and the support to engage with mental health research and skill-building.
“I’ve learned that when students feel cared for and welcomed, they show up differently,” says Rancho Cielo’s Maria Marquez, who served as one of the mentors of this cohort. “AIM Ideas Lab reminded me that connection is the foundation of meaningful mental health work. It builds trust and opens the door for deeper conversations.”
This partnership is a model for what mental health support can look like when it starts with listening, not assumptions. When young people are treated as researchers rather than subjects, the questions change. So do the answers. The 11 students who participated in AIM Ideas Lab proposed several ways to enhance mental health support at Rancho Cielo, including making more therapists available to students and creating awareness posters displayed across campus.
“I loved the process of creating the questions for the surveys,” says AIM Ideas Lab student participant Jasmin Serrano. “Being a part of this makes me want to go into the mental health field.”
Jasmin and the other student participants will present their ideas to the leadership of Rancho Cielo and John Muir Charter Schools, with implementation as the endgame. Students who want to continue have the opportunity to move forward as AIMxRC Youth Ambassadors, supported by both organizations.
“At Rancho Cielo, we invest in the whole student, and life-skills development is a core component of that,” says Rancho Cielo CEO Chris Devers. “Our partnership with AIM provides our youth with a unique opportunity to learn about, explore, and exercise their own agency. They are developing critical communication skills and confidence to advocate for their own mental health and the well-being of their peers — equipping them to address real challenges in their lives and communities long after they leave our campus.”
This work is made possible in part by a grant from Yellow Brick Road Benefit Shop, whose investment brings campus-based mental health education and youth-led research to students who are too often underserved by traditional systems.
AIM Youth Mental Health amplifies youth voice in mental health research, equipping young people with the skills to examine the state of mental health in their communities and design data-driven solutions that create real change. Through the AIM Ideas Lab, AIM embeds youth-led research and evidence-based mental health education directly into schools and community settings, centering the expertise of young people as credible contributors to the solutions that affect them most.
