Speak Our Minds: Ending the Youth Mental Health Crisis is the only organization that focuses entirely on creating an effective system of care to address the youth mental health crisis.

Speak Our Minds brings together providers, payors, parents, experts, elected officials and business entities to champion accessible mental health care. In other words, Speak Our Minds connects the dots to create life-saving change for America’s youth.

Our story began in 2021 when 130 national partners combined their collective voices to declare a national emergency for youth mental health, which led to a heightened level of public awareness and action on the subject of youth mental health through the Sound the Alarm For Kids campaign launched by the Children’s Hospital Association.

After massive success in sounding the alarm and reaching millions with the powerful message, it is now time to build on the work of these diverse and committed partners. Speak Our Minds is kicking off that next chapter, further galvanized as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to building a comprehensive system of youth mental health care.

Speak Our Minds isn’t wasting any time. We are calling on governors across the United States to pledge their commitment to end the youth mental health crisis. Implementing these building blocks is essential to end the youth mental health crisis and create a working system of care that our children and youth need.

This is just the beginning – and we need your help. Because we all have the power to speak our minds.

Please join us. Raise your voice. Push the pledge and demand more for our youth.

Together we can end the youth mental health crisis, and the time to act is now.

To build a future where all children can receive the mental health support they need to learn, grow and thrive, we aim to:

• Build robust systems of care by fully funding comprehensive, community-based systems of care that connect families in need of behavioral health services and support with evidence-based interventions in their home, community or school, including navigation, peer support, trauma-informed care and services that support relational health and family resilience.
• Bolster prevention and early intervention by implementing preventive policies that promote healthy early childhood development, facilitate expanded screening and early identification and connect families to support services that address social determinants of health and prevent adverse childhood experiences.
• Recognize and address the needs of disproportionately impacted communities by intentionally designing policies to meet the needs of racial and ethnic minority children and families, LGBTQ+ youth, low-income families, as well as children served by the child welfare and juvenile justice systems.
• Support the pediatric mental health workforce by prioritizing strategies to address long-standing workforce challenges in child mental health and intensify efforts to recruit underrepresented populations into both clinical and non-clinical mental health professions.