Help reduce US youth suicide

ReachOut Forums Officially Launched!

by Emily O'Brien, Youth Programs Director

Just in time for Mental Health Awareness Month in May, we’re excited to announce the launch of moderated forums on ReachOut.com! Driven by youth and guided by 12 peer facilitators, the forums are a safe, anonymous peer-to-peer community created to help teens and young adults get through tough times.
 
To promote the official launch, Inspire worked with Runyon Saltzman & Einhorn (RS&E), the Sacramento communications agency heading up the mental health stigma and discrimination reduction social marketing campaign. RS&E has been working hard on developing radio, online and print advertisements (see example above) that will drive California youth to the ReachOut forums. As a campaign partner, Inspire helped RS&E to identify youth aged 14-24 years old with the experience and eagerness to lend their voice and images to the campaign.
 
ReachOut Forum Peer Leaders, Kylie Nore, Alisha Murdock, Cheng Veu, Daniel Caldera, Brianda Alanis, Eric Whitt and Nicholas Dugan jumped at the exciting opportunity to participate in this statewide effort to reduce stigma. They all did a great job recording their voices reading the script provided for the radio advertisements.  Peer Leaders, ‎Kylie, Alisha and Cheng also rallied their friends and participated in a photo shoot in Sacramento on Thursday, May 10. These photos appear in the online and print ads rolling out this week. The radio ads are also running now. Kylie Nore reported that the day in Sacramento was “So much fun! I had a blast, and my friends loved it too.”
  
Support for the ReachOut Forums Provided By: The Stigma and Discrimination Reduction Consortium is a component of The Strategies for a Supportive program, funded by the voter-approved Mental Health Services Act (Prop. 63). It is one of several Prevention and Early Intervention Initiatives implemented by the California Mental Health Services Authority (CalMHSA), an organization of county governments working to improve mental health outcomes for individuals, families and communities. CalMHSA operates services and education programs on a statewide, regional and local basis. For more information, visit www.calmhsa.org.

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Inspire to Host Health and Well-Being Summit

by Emily O'Brien, Youth Programs Director 

The first weekend of June, Inspire USA Foundation lead the Young and Well Collaborative Research Centre (YAWCRC) International Youth Health and Well-being Summit. The goal of this summit was to bring together Australian and American youth between the ages of18 and 25 to improve the current understanding of how young people define well-being, and how they use technology to enhance positive mental health.
 
This Youth Summit will directly inform the development of apps and the design of an Online Well-being Center (OLWBC) set to launch next year. Inspire USA, Inspire Australia and Queensland University of Technology (QUT) will run two youth participation workshops, one in San Francisco US, and one in Sydney, Australia. The first part of the agenda will consist of in-person/offline activities run at the headquarters of Inspire USA and Inspire Australia. The later part of the workshop will be a joint 2-hour video teleconference between US and Australian youth. We are excited about this event and learning from both US and Australian youth who are a part of the OLWBC international youth advisory group.

by Meredith Sires, Web Editor

This month, Inspire USA Digital Director Anastasia Goodstein had the honor of attending and speaking at the fourth annual Business & Human Rights Summit hosted by Yahoo! in Washington, D.C. at the Newseum. This year’s event followed the launch of the Change Your World series in Cairo with a similar focus on how women across the world are using social media, digital media, technology and the Internet to create positive change in the world. Attendees included Fulbright Fellow Lauren Bohn, GLAAD Vice President of Campaigns and Programs Allison Palmer and The U.S. State Department’s Senior Advisor for Women and Technology Ann Mei Chang,
 
Anastasia was invited to appear on the Social Advocacy and Women’s Health panel to discuss the work we do harnessing technology to promote mental health and prevent suicide. She touched on the ways that ReachOut, in welcoming all young people, provides young women with a readable, relatable source for support and information on a wide range of issues that impact their daily lives.

Beyond health, the summit covered four primary areas: women's leadership in governance and politics, women's rights/human rights and social justice, journalism, and entrepreneurship.
 
The summit was designed as an inspiring showcase of women using digital tools to influence policy, govern, engage and inspire voters, address social issues and change the world for teens and young adults growing up today.