General

June 27, 2022 — Content Warning: This piece contains mentions of suicide. Welcome to our amazing group of summer 2022 interns! We’re so excited to work with them to continue changing the conversation around mental health. Sofia Alvarez 1. Where are you from? I’m from Newark, DE. 2. Where do you (or did you) go to school? What do […]

June 23, 2022 — Throughout my life, I resided in many multi-cultural, under-resourced, and impoverished communities that exposed me to a multitude of systemic inequities that impacted my family and friends’ well-being and mental health. I too faced those inequities as a queer Latiné, and as I learned more about the systems in place that upheld those barriers, I […]

June 16, 2022 — The Mental Health Youth Action Forum, hosted for the first time in 2022 and taking place at the White House, was a time for the next generation of mental health advocates to gather and share their experiences, perspectives, and solutions regarding mental health. Jorge Alvarez, whose advocacy through social media and on-campus as an Active […]

June 16, 2022 — Content Warning: This piece contains mentions of suicide. Diana Chao, Active Minds Speaker, was one of a select group of young adult mental health leaders chosen to take part in the inaugural Mental Health Youth Action Forum at the White House. A first-generation Chinese-American immigrant and graduate of Princeton University, Diana has candidly spoken about […]

June 15, 2022 — Now more than ever, we’re seeing investments in mental health: from colleges and universities prioritizing the expansion of resources, to corporations supporting further research, to President Biden addressing the youth mental health crisis head-on at the State of the Union. As we continue to focus on mental health in the way it deserves, we must […]

June 10, 2022 — When I look back at the past four years of high school, and ahead to the future as a graduate, one of the biggest changes that I saw in my community of classmates was around mental health culture. How schools view and address mental health can vary widely – some schools have the resources to […]

June 3, 2022 — Content Warning: This piece contains mentions of suicide statistics. Pride Month is a time when many organizations and communities show their support for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) community in hopes of creating a culture that is more accepting, welcoming, and inclusive. What started as a result of the Stonewall Riots in […]

May 26, 2022 — I was in my second year of college when my first major bout with depression hit. It was 2006 and at the time, I had never heard about depression, anxiety, or really mental health at all. I didn’t have the language to articulate what I was going through to the people around me, and they […]

May 25, 2022 — We forget. Again and again, we forget. We forget the lives lost. We forget the screaming and tears of the classmates. The gasping, breathtaking grief of the parents, and the ashen shock of the teachers. We forget the horror, the anger, the anguish. We forget. We allow complacency and suffering to perpetuate. Today, there are […]

May 20, 2022 — At one time or another, we’ve all said the wrong thing. Despite best intentions, anyone can commit a microaggression. Embedded in our culture, institutions, and interactions, these systems can become part of our thinking without us even realizing it.  When we use words or actions to create harm against stigmatized or culturally marginalized groups, such […]

May 18, 2022 — Today, a group of thirty youth mental health leaders, including five affiliated with Active Minds, presented creative, thought-provoking solutions to the youth mental health crises currently unfolding in our nation. The inaugural Mental Health Youth Action Forum, created by MTV Entertainment, and featuring mental health nonprofits, senior officials from the Biden-Harris administration, and special guest […]

May 13, 2022 — Content Warning: This piece contains mentions of suicide. As a high schooler, I convinced myself that starting college would be the fresh start I was looking for. I was certainly ready for one. So as I sat on the long drive to Eastern Michigan University (EMU) I looked through lists of student clubs, envisioning what […]