New Coalition Launches To Convene A Comprehensive Conversation About America’s Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Challenge

Youth Wellbeing in America is a Serious Challenge in Need of a Multifaceted Solution

For Immediate Release
January 17, 2025
Contact: [email protected]

WASHINGTON (January 17, 2025) – As America’s youth face a rise in mental health and wellbeing challenges, the Coalition to Empower our Future launched today with the goal of convening a comprehensive conversation on the multifaceted and complex factors contributing to the state of youth mental health.

The coalition aims to bring together stakeholders, including mental health experts, parents, youth, nonprofit representatives, industry leaders, educators, policymakers and others, in a coordinated and urgent manner. By convening a wide array of perspectives and expertise from national and local stakeholders on the many factors that impact youth mental health – including but not limited to social isolation, device usage, family and economic instability, exposure to violence, absence of independent play and more – the coalition’s hope is to help shed light on meaningful and comprehensive solutions.

“There is broad consensus that America’s youth are facing unprecedented challenges around mental health and wellbeing,” said Glen Weiner, executive director of the Coalition to Empower our Future. “To move closer toward meaningful solutions, we must work collaboratively to better understand youth mental health in its full complexity. Our hope is that convening this coalition will open a forum of conversation among people thinking about this serious challenge from many different vantage points and draw on the expertise of organizations doing critical work across the country. As a father of two, this is deeply personal to me. Without this fulsome approach, we may lose an opportunity to pursue fully informed solutions that consider the myriad factors that impact youth mental health and wellbeing.”

The coalition will be guided by a board of directors that includes former Governor Steve Bullock (D-Montana), January Contreras, former assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Family Services at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and former U.S. Representative Carlos Curbelo (R-Florida).

“Youth mental health and wellbeing is an urgent and complex topic, but there is none more important,” said former Governor of Montana Steve Bullock. “As governor of Montana, I saw firsthand how stigma, lack of providers, insufficient financial resources, and shortcomings in approaches to comprehensively address mental health have prevented so many from getting the help they need. By convening stakeholders who work with youth and families every day, learning and sharing their expertise, and tackling this collective challenge from a variety of angles, we’ll get closer to the long-lasting solutions that we all want for our young people.”

“Addressing youth mental health and wellbeing is not just a priority, it is an obligation,” said January Contreras, former assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). “We must ensure all our children experience supportive environments that help foster hope and connection, especially in these challenging times. We are committed to listening to youth and their families and shining light on what works to strengthen the wellbeing of our nation’s children and families.”

“We hope to engage a broad range of voices to inform a comprehensive conversation around youth wellbeing and identify ways we can drive meaningful and lasting solutions,” said former U.S. Representative Carlos Curbelo. “In Congress, I was proud to work alongside my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to advance mental health solutions, and I am grateful to continue this work as part of the Coalition to Empower our Future. Together, we can create an ecosystem of support that fosters resilience and positive change for our young people and their families.”

The Coalition to Empower our Future will focus its work on better understanding the multitude of factors contributing to increases in youth mental health challenges and identifying well-informed and comprehensive solutions that equip parents and communities with the tools and resources needed to enhance support for young people.

The growing coalition includes After-School All-Stars, Epilepsy Foundations of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, Homestretch, Minds Matter D.C., Meta, which has provided seed funding for the organization, The Trevor Project, and Young People in Recovery. Dr. Caroline Carney, a board-certified psychiatrist and internist, is a health executive and clinician who serves as an expert advisor to the coalition.

To join the coalition or to learn more, visit empowerourfuturecoalition.com.

About the Coalition to Empower our Future

Coalition to Empower our Future is a newly formed organization bringing together a range of voices to fully inform solutions that empower youth, parents, communities and society. The Coalition to Empower our Future supports solutions that are inclusive of the full spectrum of factors impacting youth mental health. Former Montana Governor Steve Bullock, former assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Family Services at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services January Contreras, and former U.S. Representative Carlos Curbelo serve on the board of directors of the Coalition to Empower our Future. To learn more, visit empowerourfuturecoalition.com or follow Coalition to Empower our Future on Facebook, X and YouTube.

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