Background: Research dedicated to youth mental health problems in low – resource countries is an urgent and critical global health priority. Prior to COVID-19, only a handful of studies had estimated the prevalence rates of youth depression and anxiety and identified the associations between these problems with socio-demographic and psychosocial variables. As COVID-19 has emerged as a stressor for youth mental health, new studies on youth mental health during and post COVID-19 may yield important research, policy, and practice implications. Here, we assessed the prevalence of depression and anxiety symptoms and their associations with psychosocial and sociodemographic variables in a large sample of school-going youths in Kenya. Method: Measures of depression (PHQ-8) and anxiety (GAD-7), social support, perseverance, optimism, perceived control, connectedness, happiness, purpose in life, and gratitude were administered to 1,498 Kenyan adolescents (55.47% male) aged 13-to-21 years (M age = 16.33) in mid-2021 when schools re-opened after the COVID–19 school closures. Results: Some 42.46% and 37.56% youths met the clinical cut-off for elevated depression and anxiety symptoms, respectively. Adolescents whose academic performance was not satisfactory endorsed higher depressive and anxiety symptoms. Female adolescents and those who lived with a single parent endorsed higher depressive and anxiety symptoms, respectively. Subjective wellbeing and perceived control were negatively associated with depressive symptoms.Conclusion: The prevalence of depression and anxiety symptoms among Kenyan adolescents has remained steady when compared to pre-pandemic studies. However, symptoms were high when compared to those of adolescents in other countries during COVID-19. This study also identified potential important risk and protective factors.

Background: Adolescents in the juvenile justice system are vulnerable to mental health problems, a challenge that is exacerbated by the rehabilitation methods used in these settings. There is a need to understand adolescent mental health in juvenile detention settings with an emphasis on possible interventions that can improve adolescent mental health while incarcerated. This scoping review aims to identify mental health interventions in the juvenile justice system. Methods: We conducted a scoping review using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) Checklist used to guide reporting. A search was conducted on the PsycINFO and Google scholar databases for original research articles published between 1990 and 2021. Results: Our search generated 3575 studies; 3506 were excluded after screening. Sixty-nine articles met the inclusion criteria after the first screening. A second review narrowed this to 23 studies. The total sample size for all included studies was 4,798 participants aged 11-20 years. Forty two percent of included studies investigated multisystemic therapy, 26% of studies examined cognitive therapies, 11% harnessed behavioral approaches, and the remaining 21% implemented counseling services, functional family therapy, and trauma affect regulation therapy. Conclusion: Our review identified 18 interventions that were administered to populations in juvenile correctional facilities. Multisystemic therapy and cognitive therapy were the most common, with MST showing more efficacy in improving juvenile mental health problems. Our study reveals the paucity of research on this important topic and identifies the need for more robust trials of character-building interventions in juvenile centers.