Leah Watson quit her job of three years as a preschool teacher due to the workplace becoming “toxic.” She had nothing lined up.

Then a family member recommended she apply for the Maryland Corps/Service Year Option Program, a nine-month service opportunity through the Maryland Department of Service and Civic Innovation that provides paid hands-on work experience and professional development.

Watson, 25, who’s originally from Prince George’s County, works as a peer mentor to six girls at her former high school as a member of the Maryland Youth Mental Health Corps, a program that trains young people to mentor and support youth. Watson’s first day working with the teenagers affirmed she was where she needed to be.

“The first day I went there, they asked, like, ‘Are you going to come back? Are you going to be back?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, I am,’” Watson said.

“Them being able and open to share what they’re going through and having that safe space and feeling as if I’m their safe space and someone that they can confide in,” justified the work she does through the program.

Launched last fall, the Maryland Youth Mental Health Corps is the newest addition to the Maryland Corps/Service Year Option for 18- to 29-year-olds. Corps members learn about teen mental health first aid, child and adolescent development, and suicide prevention, among other specialized training to support young people.

Three dozen young adults work at community-based sites, schools and AmeriCorps programs across Maryland, providing mental health support. Officials say they hope to grow the number of youths serving other youths to 100 in the next year.

Anxiety, behavior disorders and depression are the most common mental health diagnoses for young people, according to 2025 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC said mental health, substance use and suicide are concerns for adolescents, 20% of whom reported unmet mental health care needs.

Angel Avelar, a Maryland Youth Mental Health Corps member, wouldn’t go so far as to say he was depressed in high school, but he hit a low point. He struggled getting out of bed and sometimes wouldn’t make it to school, which was a huge blow to his grades.

Avelar said his father gave him the motivation to get out of his funk. Now he works at VineCorps, a youth development organization in Largo that serves teenagers across Prince George’s County, to support students dealing with disorders, substance abuse and other mental health issues.

At 19 and a recent high school graduate, Avelar knows he doesn’t have all the answers. Still, he said it’s nice to see students come to him, a peer, for “more updated advice.”

“The first month, it was weird since they didn’t know me, and they thought I was a student. I thought it would take a while to gain their respect as a staff [member], but it was very easy,” Avelar said. “They always come to me — since they know I was fresh out of high school — for advice.”

In a 2023 study, 45 college undergraduate students experiencing mild to moderate symptoms of anxiety or depression were randomly assigned to two groups: 21 received trained peer mentors for four weeks, while 24 were on the waitlist. Of the participants who completed the required surveys, 32, those who received peer mentorship, saw improvements in their symptoms, researchers found.

First lady Dawn Moore dubs the Maryland Youth Mental Health Corps “one of the crown jewels of the Moore-Miller administration.” She invited four other governors’ spouses from Delaware, North Carolina, Oklahoma and South Dakota to speak with corps members including Watson and Avelar on Wednesday at the Baltimore Ravens Boys & Girls’ Club, one of the program’s community-based sites.

“I truly believe that children’s mental health is the crisis of our generation,” Moore said. “When we bring these young people in who can relate and who are trained to be able to do this type of work, we have a win-win with how we can effect positive change in our communities.”

In addition to learning about the program, the first ladies sat in an art class of about a dozen young people making calming bottles — glass cases filled with water, glue, food coloring and glitter that they can shake to ease their stress levels.

“It’s fun shaking it,” one little girl sitting at South Dakota first lady Sandy Rhoden’s table said.

Wednesday’s special guests arrived amid the National Governors Association’s First Spouses Retreat. It comes just as the General Assembly session ends and Moore’s husband, Democratic Gov. Wes Moore, prepares to hit the campaign trail, vying for reelection with his lowest approval rating.

Watson plans to apply to be a second-year leader in the Maryland Youth Mental Health Corps and, in the process, work on opening her own day care center. Aspects of her training with the program, she said, will definitely show up in how she runs her future business. Watson hopes to equip her future staffers with the same youth mental health training she received.