The Kids Mental Health Foundation

Community Education - The Kids Mental Health Foundation is building a world where mental health is a vital part of every child's upbringing by providing free, expert-created resources. The resources help empower adults with the confidence to understand, address and promote the mental health of kids in their lives. KidsMentalHealthFoundation.org serves as the hub for this educational content. More than 60 new resources were created in 2023 alone, in addition to providing education through community resource tablings and presentations nationally. Other specific programs include Bloom, a workplace curriculum for parents; Monthly Teacher Wellness Kits sent to educators that provide a focus on a monthly topic, along with a specific version about kindness; The Mooderators, a partnership with GoNoodle to teach kids how to express their feelings through emotions and educator curriculum; and Ask Me, an education campaign that encouraged adults to have conversations about mental health with the children in their lives. Web traffic alone accounted for over 800,000 page views of resources for these audiences.

Programming and Distribution - The primary activities include the development and distribution of children's mental health resources. Kids Mental Health Foundation provides lesson plans, curricula and other content packages to community partners, including school districts, churches and youth-serving organizations, which in turn use and further distribute these resources throughout their communities to educate and raise awareness about children's mental health. In addition, The Kids Mental Health Foundation offers numerous electronic resources for parents and advocates through its website, including articles, guides and curriculum that can help address children's mental health needs, and articles on a variety of mental health topics. Content is promoted through its website, as well as social media accounts, an electronic newsletter, distribution partners and a learning management system. Since 2018, the program has provided educational materials to more than 11 million people nationwide. Educational materials are evidence-informed and developed year-round with insights from the 1000+ behavioral health professionals at Nationwide Children's Hospital, one of America's largest providers of mental health services. All development is overseen by the Executive and Associate Clinical Directors, both who are practicing child psychologists. The team also uses the support of other mental health experts depending on specific topic areas. The materials are then used by community partners, national organizations, educators, coaches, corporations, health care organizations, families and advocates across the country. Surveys to e-community members help assess needs for topics and feedback regarding usefulness of resources. Surveys for community audiences following presentations and tabling events for feedback regarding helpfulness and relevance. With the teacher kits, 84% of participants have noticed a positive change in their student's behavior since using the Mental Wellness Kits.

Social Impact - In addition to the provision of educational resources, The Kids Mental Health Foundation seeks to bring awareness to issues and help break stigmas surrounding children's mental health through media outlets, presentations and conversations. The Kids Mental Health Foundation is part of the Mental Health Coalition and the MTV Storytelling Coalition and shares best practices with them. In 2023, The Kids Mental Health Foundation partnered with USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative to develop the children's section of the Mental Health Media Guide. The Kids Mental Health Foundation also participated in a White House discussion about representation of children's mental health in the entertainment industry and consulted on work in the entertainment industry about mental health portrayals. Kids Mental Health Foundation uses the megaphone of the entertainment industry to promote children's mental health through social media - Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Licensing - The Kids Mental Health Foundation is the leading organization promoting mental health for children in the United States. To achieve its vision to build a world where mental health is a vital part of every child's upbringing, more than 1,000 mental health professionals and researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital, in partnership with other trusted experts, provide real-world knowledge and expertise to power the Foundation's free educational videos, guides and curriculum. Launched in 2018 as The On Our Sleeves Movement for Children's Mental Health, the organization recently expanded its mission as The Kids Mental Health Foundation to reflect the belief that emotional and physical wellbeing should be treated the same. To date, more than 11 million people have engaged with the Foundation's materials, empowering parents, caregivers, educators, coaches and employers as the guiding force for children's mental health all across the United States.