It’s Conference—our favorite time of the year at Active Minds! Youth and young adults from across the country come together to share ideas, connect around programming, and learn from one another.
This year there’s a twist: we are taking our advocacy to Capitol Hill with more than 200 youth and young adults to support the Campus Lifeline Act. This is a bipartisan bill aiming to strengthen mental health support for youth and young adults, led by youth and young adults.
The bipartisan bill advances two core priorities:
- Expanding access to mental health crisis resources by including the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline on newly-issued student ID cards.
- Increasing federal investment in youth-informed mental health strategies on college campuses.
Youth and young adults are facing unprecedented mental health challenges. Action is a necessity, and the Campus Lifeline Act gives young people a seat at the table when it comes to leading mental health solutions. This year’s conference is dedicated to policy mobilization and community building across mental health programming – from Active Minds’ very own Student Advisory Committee to brand activations with ENOUGH and social media challenges built to elevate advocacy efforts by taking our boots-on-the-ground mobilization into the digital space.
After a full day of advocating on the Hill with peers and being in conversation directly with legislators, our advocates are headed to our social hour, dinner, and evening programming.
Social hour kicks off with swag for all registrants and stations dedicated to emphasizing the mobilization efforts of youth and young adults.
Some of the offerings will be:
Resource Table: Stock up on A.S.K. program postcards, Active Minds cards, stickers, and more programmatic information.
Cause + Career Headshots: Get a professional headshot done on site at the conference to elevate your LinkedIn profile.
Send Silence Packing Share Your Story Booth: SSP has been reimagined! Come and learn about the exhibit and take the opportunity to share your own story.
Photo Booth: Take photos and mini videos at our designated station to be used in future advocacy campaigns and posted to your personal channels.
Student Advisory Committee Reflection and Connection Wall: Write, draw, and print photos to be a part of this collaborative installation dedicated to amplifying mental health stories and the advocacy they inspire.
Our evening program follows with an array of experiences. We begin with a live recording of the She Persisted Podcast with Sadie Sutton and special guest Gen Z mental health advocate Hailey Hardcastle. Musical performances from D.C. native Be Steadwell highlights the evening alongside our panel, Built for This: The Advocacy Pipeline from School Passion to National Impact.
Featured speakers include:
Moderator Brandon Bond: Director of People & Organizational Well-Being at Garrett’s Space, a young adult suicide prevention nonprofit. With a background in public health and social work, he focuses on multicultural wellness, nonclinical therapeutic support, and public mental health advocacy. With the Emerging Scholars Fellowship he created an integrative wellness pop-up barbershop, serving on the Active Minds x MTV Entertainment Youth Advisory Board that launched the A.S.K. Acknowledge, Support, Keep-in-Touch campaign. His leadership has expanded nationally as an inaugural Youth Advocate in Mental Health America’s Youth Policy Accelerator and locally through his appointment as one of the youngest Human Rights Commissioners in Ann Arbor’s history.
Panelist Bria Murph: As the reigning Miss Celina in the Miss America Opportunity, Bria is a servant in her community through her community service initiative. “Do More, Be More” to empower youth to use their adversity to aim higher than the limitations of society. Passionate about mental health advocacy, her podcast “Chai with Bria” is dedicated to featuring stories of people overcoming adversity. As a member of the Active Minds Advocacy Institute, Bria recently developed “Project Zen UH” to promote social connectedness at her university by revamping older spaces into relaxing environments for students on her culturally diverse campus.
Panelist Rohan Sajita: He is the Co-Founder & CEO of Let’s Learn Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has distributed over 75,000 books and 5,000 mental-health kits to more than 13,000 underserved students across Texas. As a member of the Mental Health Advocacy Academy he developed a strategic advocacy plan centered on scaling the Vibrant Voices Project, a program he founded that uses mental health monologue-writing workshops to support youth in juvenile detention. Rohan has led the expansion of Vibrant Voices to five Texas counties and training for youth facilitators to lead peer-to-peer delivery.
Panelist Jodi Johnson: His journey with Active Minds began in January 2024 as a member of the Emerging Scholars Fellowship. Through this experience, he developed “Brother, You’re Not Alone,” a project addressing the gap in mental health treatment among Black, African, and Caribbean American men, with a focus on the need for increased preventative support. After completing the fellowship, Jodi merged his passion for athletics with advocacy by joining Team Active Minds, fundraising through distance running. To date, he has raised over $3,500. While completing the Philadelphia Marathon twice and traveling internationally to run the Berlin Marathon, Jodi remains committed to advancing mental health awareness and support through both community-building and endurance athletics.
Panelist Varsha Penumalee: Through her writing, public speaking, and leadership, Varsha works to de-stigmatize mental health and empower young people to use their voices to drive systemic change. She serves on the Active Minds Student Advisory Committee, where she helps shape national initiatives, leads Chapter Chats on topics like policy and engagement, and contributes to large-scale advocacy efforts including Hill Day programming. In parallel, Varsha is the President of NAMI Virginia NextGen and Secretary of Youth MOVE National, where she advances youth-driven mental health policy, outreach, and peer support initiatives on the state and national levels. Her advocacy is deeply informed by her lived experiences and her commitment to addressing health inequities, particularly for marginalized communities.
