• Girls Inc. and Learn to Live announce collaboration to tackle the youth mental health crisis disproportionately affecting young women

NEW YORK and MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 5, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Today, preeminent girls’ leadership organization Girls Inc. and leading digital mental health provider Learn to Live announced a partnership to make clinically proven mental health services available free to Girls Inc. participants aged 13 and above. The program will offer support for social anxiety; depression; stress, anxiety & worry; panic; insomnia; substance use; and resilience skills to over 55,000 girls across the U.S. and Canada.

Mental health problems facing teenage girls and young women have grown alarmingly over the past decade. A recent CDC study found that 57% of female high school students experienced persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness in 2021 – a nearly 60% increase from a decade ago and nearly twice the rate of male students.

“Now, more than ever, empowering and supporting teenage girls and young women is a vital step towards combating the prevailing mental health epidemic,” said Dale Cook, Learn to Live co-founder and CEO. “By providing our clinically validated programs to the young women of Girls Inc., we hope to equip them with the tools to navigate life’s challenges, break down stigma, and create a future where mental well-being is valued and prioritized.”

The partnership builds on a successful pilot launched earlier this year with Girls Inc. staff and alumnae. The pilot provided an opportunity for the adults within the network of Girls Inc. to familiarize themselves with the programs so that they can provide support and guidance to the Girls Inc. participants who utilize them.

“At Girls Inc. we know how important mental well-being is to our participants – to nurture their resiliency, self-worth, and capacity to thrive,” said Girls Inc. President and CEO Stephanie Hull. “We are grateful to Learn to Live for providing this valuable programming. Together, we can champion the mental health of our girls and young women, ensuring their voices are heard, their needs are met, and their potential is unleashed.”

Learn to Live offers digital programs and 24/7 clinician coaching based on the clinically proven strategies of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), to provide mental health tools and skills that teach people how to recognize and then change unhelpful thinking and behavior patterns to provide a meaningful, long-term impact on users’ mental health and well-being.

About Girls Inc.
Girls Inc. is a network of local organizations that works with schools and in communities across the United States and Canada. Through direct service and advocacy Girls Inc. equips girls – particularly girls from low-income communities and girls of color – with the knowledge and skills to effect positive changes in their lives and to become leaders who will change the world. Professionally trained staff and volunteers provide mentorship, safe spaces, and programming that address the unique challenges girls face and are proven to help girls succeed.

Together with partners and supporters, Girls Inc. is building the new generation of leaders. Join us at girlsinc.org.

About Learn to Live
Learn to Live is a leading digital mental health provider that brings together the clinically proven strategies of cognitive behavioral therapy with an easily accessible technology platform and live clinician coaching to provide a high-value benefit delivered through health plans, employers, and schools. The programs are designed to help people live better lives by addressing some of the most common mental health problems, including social anxiety; depression; stress, anxiety & worry; panic; insomnia; and substance use with a consistent focus on resilience and mindfulness. Learn to Live provides effective help to millions of people through a digital model that addresses the greatest barriers to receiving care: access, cost, and stigma. For more information visit www.learntolive.com.

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SOURCE Learn to Live

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CHICAGO, Aug. 31, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — CME Group Foundation today announced an initial $2 million in funding to expand its grantmaking program to support young women and girls impacted by trauma and violence in Chicago.

“We are pleased to make these initial grants that will bring high-quality mental health resources to young women and girls in Chicago’s underserved communities,” said Terry Duffy, CME Group Chairman & Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman of CME Group Foundation. “CME Group Foundation has always supported education from cradle to career, and this investment is the latest example of that commitment to our city.”

CME Group Foundation will also support local organizations and projects that increase the reach of mentors and mental health service providers to young women and girls, enhance innovation for trauma responsiveness and social-emotional learning to reduce the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and drive awareness and collaboration across Chicago’s public and private sectors.

Among the initial group of organizations to receive CME Group Foundation mental health grants are:

• Children’s Research Triangle
• Focus Fairies
• Girls Inc. of Chicago
• Juvenile Protective Association
• Ladies of Virtue
• Polished Pebbles
• Union League Boys and Girls Club
• Youth Guidance

CME Group Foundation makes grants to universities, school districts, and non-profit organizations that work to improve outcomes for underserved students. Since 2008, CME Group Foundation has contributed $66 million to local nonprofits that support students of all ages. For more information, visit www.cmegroupfoundation.org.

About CME Group Foundation

CME Group Foundation helps today’s students keep pace with dramatically evolving technology, creating a workforce for the future that is equipped with the skills to meet tomorrow’s global challenges. By bringing together the brightest minds in education to prepare students for kindergarten, provide robust opportunities in computer science, and support them with college and career success, we are sparking system-wide change that benefits all students, from cradle to career, with a focus on those who are typically underrepresented in the STEM fields. They will shape the future of the world’s most important industries, including our own, so we give them the tools they need to achieve their full potential.

About CME Group

As the world’s leading derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural products and metals. The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform.  In addition, it operates one of the world’s leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing. 

CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and, E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc. NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec and EBS are trademarks of BrokerTec Europe LTD and EBS Group LTD, respectively. The S&P 500 Index is a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC (“S&P DJI”). “S&P®”, “S&P 500®”, “SPY®”, “SPX®”, US 500 and The 500 are trademarks of Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC; Dow Jones®, DJIA® and Dow Jones Industrial Average are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. These trademarks have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. Futures contracts based on the S&P 500 Index are not sponsored, endorsed, marketed, or promoted by S&P DJI, and S&P DJI makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in such products. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 

CME-G

SOURCE CME Group

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In 2020, Dotson, a Los Angeles-based actor and writer, watched on the news as thousands took to the streets in Louisville to protest the police killings of Breonna Taylor and other Black Americans.

She wondered about how what was happening — the reckoning for police violence in Black communities, as well as the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — was affecting young people.

“I thought about the young girls in that community and I thought about what they might be feeling,” she said. “I wondered if they felt devalued by what was happening, and if they felt unseen.”

Dotson wanted to help teach them how to write and use their voices.

She bought three laptops and flew to Louisville, delivering them to three girls from a local church. Around the same time, she took on a challenge to run 300 miles for 300 girls in Louisville, with plans to raise funds to help more.

Now, she’s modeled the evolving program into a six-week free course that helps girls grow in their confidence and self-expression through art, writing, movement, and meditative exercises — like mantras and mental health support.

Chastity Dotson, founder of 300 for 300, a program to mentor and help foster self expression in girls of color in the Louisville area, in the temporary art exhibit for families to celebrate recent graduates of the program. On the walls were portraits of the girls, taken by Dotson.

“We hope that these girls who feel unseen and unheard will come and find a safe space where they are seen and they are heard and through these images, they are able to experience the beauty and the magic that I’ve seen them reflected back to them.”

“We’re constantly trying to find new ways to get them to try on new ideas about themselves that allow them to expand the concept of who they are and who they can be in their homes, how they can show up in their community in their school and their families,” Dotson said.

She wants to help shake the barriers and biases — being told to be quiet, being told not to express themselves — that prevent girls from feeling like they can be their true selves.

“There’s this idea that because they’re girls of color, because they’re Black girls, that they somehow should be stronger and more mature, or they should know better,” she said. “That stops them from expressing themselves, that stops them from their nature of being kids.”

BrookLynn Bowman recently graduated from the program. She said she’s always been into arts and crafts, and she loves to sing. She’s attending Western Middle School — a public performing arts school. She said the 300 program gave her more confidence and sharpened her creativity. She also made new friends.

Now, she’s been writing more and focusing on songwriting.

“It’s given me a lot and just makes me want to stand out more than fit in with everyone else,” she said.

“I feel like as a girl of color, people don’t listen as well … to us.”

A photo of 13-year-old BrookLynn Bowman at a temporary art exhibit in Clarksville for families to celebrate the most recent class of 300 for 300, a program that helps girls of color grow in their self expression. Chastity Dotson, founder of the program, took the girls’ photos.

Dotson took photos of each program participant. The portraits show the girls as Dotson sees them and how she wants them to see themselves — their faces bright, shining, happy and proud.

They adorned the walls of a cottage in Clarksville as a temporary art exhibit to celebrate with the families.

Under each was something the girls wrote, including their first memories.

“Love her for she is beautiful, kind, special, amazing and nice,” an excerpt from Bowman’s reads. “Cherish her for she is amazing, one of a kind, and unique. Believe in her because she will do great things. She will help people. She will change the world. Her name is BrookLynn, and she is in full bloom.”

Supporting these voices is important because representation matters, Dotson said. She said girls of color don’t see themselves reflected as much as others in society.

“I Googled ‘happy girl’ and I didn’t see a bunch of beautiful Brown faces,” she said. “And that’s why it’s important to amplify these stories and images. They need to know that they are part of that story.”

To learn more about the program including how to apply or help support it through volunteer efforts or donations, visit 300for300.org.

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Boston psychiatrist discusses pandemic’s impact on teenage girls’ mental health

Updated: 6:19 PM EDT Jul 13, 2023

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NEWSCENTER 5 AT 530. ALL RIGHT. THERE’S NEW EVIDENCE OF THE GROWING MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS IMPACTING OUR KIDS. RECENT ANALYSIS SHOWS THE SURGE IN E.R. VISITS FOR PSYCHIATRIC CONCERNS DURING THE PANDEMIC WAS DRIVEN LARGELY BY YOUNG GIRLS AGES 13 TO 17. SO HERE WERE SOME INSIGHT AS DR. KHADIJAH BOOTH WATKINS, SHE’S A CHILD PSYCHIATRIST AND THE CO-DIRECTOR OF THE CLAY CENTER FOR YOUNG HEALTHY MINDS AT MG. DR. BOOTH WATKINS, THANKS FOR YOUR TIME. THANKS FOR HAVING ME BACK. SO DOES IT SURPRISE YOU THAT THAT GROUP, YOUNG GIRLS AGES 13 TO 17, WAS IMPACTED SO STRONGLY? YES OR NO? MEAN AT THIS POINT, WE ALL KNOW THAT WE’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS FOR OUR YOUNG PEOPLE. AND SO BOYS AND GIRLS ARE BOTH UTILIZING THE EMERGENCY ROOMS AT HIGH RATES. BUT IT’S NOT SURPRISING IF WE RECALL, THAT THE SOCIAL MEDIA HAD A MORE NEGATIVE IMPACT ON OUR GIRLS AND ALSO THE ROLE THAT STIGMA MAY BE PLAYING HERE. YOU KNOW, GIRLS ARE MORE OFTEN LIKELY TO TALK ABOUT THEIR STRUGGLES AND DISTRESSES AND ASK FOR HELP. WHEREAS FOR BOYS, BECAUSE OF THE STIGMA, THEY MAY BE LESS LIKELY TO TALK ABOUT IT AND LESS LIKELY TO ASK FOR HELP BECAUSE THEY MIGHT SEE IT AS WEAKNESS OR MIGHT BE AFRAID THAT THEIR, YOU KNOW, PEERS OR FAMILY MEMBERS MIGHT SEE IT AS A WEAKNESS. SO THERE IS NO REAL ONE EXPLANATION AS TO WHY THERE’S THIS GAP. BUT THERE IS THIS GAP. AND SO WE DO NEED TO UNDERSTAND IT MORE. WHAT DOES IT TELL YOU, DR. WATKINS, THAT THESE YOUNG WOMEN AND THEIR PARENTS, THEY’RE GOING DIRECTLY TO THE E.R. FOR CARE, TELLS ME A COUPLE OF THINGS. IT TELLS ME THAT MEAN WE THINK ABOUT THE EMERGENCY ROOM. WE USE IT WHEN WE’RE IN CRISIS, WHEN WE’RE WHEN THEIR SAFETY ISSUES. AND SO IT TELLS ME THAT THESE THESE FAMILIES ARE IN CRISIS, THESE YOUNG GIRLS ARE IN CRISIS, AND THERE MAY BE SAFETY CONCERNS. THERE MAY BE SUICIDALITY, HOMICIDE ALITY, THEY MAY BE SELF INJURY. AND SO THEY HAVE TO USE THE EMERGENCY ROOM TO KEEP THEIR CHILD SAFE. BUT ALTERNATIVELY, YOU KNOW, IF WE THINK ABOUT THE LACK OF EDUCATION AS IT RELATES TO MENTAL HEALTH, YOU KNOW, OFTEN IT’S NOT THE SIGNS OF SYMPTOMS AREN’T NOTICED EARLY ENOUGH. AND SO SO THEY’RE LEFT TO KIND OF GO ON AND ON TILL THEY REACH THE CRISIS POINT. BUT THEY’RE ALSO OCCASIONS WHERE FAMILIES WANT TO GET HELP FOR THEIR KIDS. AND DUE TO THE WORKFORCE SHORTAGES, THEY REALLY DON’T HAVE ANY OTHER RECOURSE THAN TO GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM. YEAH, CERTAINLY A SHORTAGE OF THERAPISTS AS WELL. ALL RIGHT. SO THE SURVEY OF INSURANCE CLAIMS SHOWED THE BIGGEST ISSUES IN THIS SURGE WERE SUICIDAL AND SELF-HARMING BEHAVIOR. AND EATING DISORDERS. SO WHAT SHOULD PARENTS BE WATCHING FOR WHEN IT COMES TO THESE CONDITIONS AND WHEN IT’S TIME TO HELP IT? I ALWAYS SAY LOOK, FOR MAJOR CHANGES. SO MAJOR CHANGES IN THEIR MOOD. SUDDENLY THEY’RE MOODY, DEPRESSED. THERE’S ANXIETY. THERE MAY BE MORE IRRITABLE, THEY’RE WITHDRAWN, THEY’RE ISOLATED. AND AS IT RELATES TO THE EATING DISORDERS PART OF IT, YOU KNOW, THEY MIGHT BECOME MORE COMPULSIVE OR EXCESSIVE ABOUT EXERCISE AND SUDDENLY THEY MIGHT EAT ALONE OR IN SECRET. THEY MIGHT BEGIN TALKING MORE AND BE MORE OBSESSED ABOUT THEIR BODY IMAGE AND THE BODY IMAGE OF OTHERS. THEY MAY OFTEN, YOU KNOW, VOMIT AFTER EATING OR SPEND LONG, LONG PERIODS OF TIME IN THE BATHROOM IMMEDIATELY AFTER MEALS AND YOU MAY ALSO NOTICE MARKS OR SCARS ON THEIR KNUCKLES OR THE BACK OF THEIR HANDS. UM, THESE ARE ALL SIGNS AND CLUES THAT THERE IS CONCERNS FOR EATING DISORDERS. BUT AGAIN, ANY MAJOR CHANGES IN MOOD AND ANXIETY DEFINITELY IS OF CONCERN. AND OF COURSE, IF THEIR SAFETY CONCERNS TALK OF SUICIDALITY, THEN THAT’S AN EMERGENCY. IT’S SO IMPORTANT TO PAY CLOSE ATTENTION. DR. RUTH WAT

Boston psychiatrist discusses pandemic’s impact on teenage girls’ mental health

Updated: 6:19 PM EDT Jul 13, 2023

A recent analysis shows the surge in ER visits for psychiatric concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic was driven largely by girls ages 13 to 17.

BOSTON —

A recent analysis shows the surge in ER visits for psychiatric concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic was driven largely by girls ages 13 to 17.

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On May 3, 2002, Alexis Patterson, a 7-year-old Black girl from Milwaukee, didn’t come home from school. 

“I’m looking out the window because I normally…watch my baby come home every day, so I ran across the street to the school,” recalled Alexis’s mother, Ayanna Patterson, in an interview with USA Today. When she went to the school and asked where Alexis was, she was told that Alexis didn’t come to school that day. 

When police officers and detectives came to her home and took the police report, they told Alexis’s mother that she probably ran away. Although Ayanna Patterson told them that her daughter would have never run away and that somebody must have kidnapped her, Alexis’s story didn’t receive national media attention until six weeks after she had disappeared.

Meanwhile, when Elizabeth Smart, a 14-year-old white girl from Salt Lake City, went missing a month after Alexis disappeared, her disappearance hit national news within 24 hours. 

“Police offered a $250,000 reward in the Elizabeth Smart case. The reward for finding Alexis Patterson was $10,000,” reported USA Today. “Nine months after Elizabeth Smart went missing, her abductors were caught and she was reunited with her family. 20 years later, Alexis Patterson is still missing.”

How Many Black Women and Girls Are Missing in the U.S.

According to the National Crime Information Center, 90,333 Black women and girls were reported missing in 2020. 

RELATED: Are Black Women Invisible?

“Notwithstanding the efforts already expended for its elimination, racism continues to work its evil upon this nation,” wrote the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the United States in “The Vision of Race Unity” in 1991. “The recent resurgence of divisive racial attitudes, the increased number of racial incidents, and the deepening despair of minorities and the poor make the need for solutions ever more pressing and urgent. To ignore the problem is to expose the country to physical, moral and spiritual danger.”

Black women and girls represent nearly 34% of the total cases of missing women and girls, and yet Black males and females combined represent just 13.6% of the U.S. population, according to the United States Census Bureau. Black women and girls go missing at a much higher rate than white women and girls, but that isn’t reflected in media coverage or law enforcement efforts.

The Media and Police Department’s Neglect of the Missing Black Women and Children

Gina Barton, an investigative reporter for USA Today, said, “Everything anecdotally that I have heard and everything that experts have told me has shown that missing Black children are more likely to be labeled runaways than missing white children. …If you think she’s a runaway and she left on her own accord, you’re not looking for a kidnapper. You’re not looking for somebody who had done her harm.”

Recently, Black residents in Kansas City, Missouri, said that the police ignored their warnings that a serial killer was targeting Black women in their community until one of his captives escaped in October. According to Democracy Now!, a non-profit independent global news organization, on October 7, 2022, “a 22-year-old Black woman in Excelsior Springs, Missouri, escaped from a white man who she says held her captive in his basement for nearly a month, whipping, torturing and raping her repeatedly. The woman fled and knocked on a neighbor’s door for help after the man left the house to take his son to school.” The woman who escaped said that her abductor had already killed other Black women.

Reporter Gina Barton also stated, “It’s important for the national media to get involved because when people go missing, they don’t necessarily stay in the same city that they were taken from or that they disappeared from. Not long after Alexis and Elizabeth disappeared, the late PBS reporter Gwen Ifill coined the term ‘missing white woman syndrome.’ Beautiful, usually blonde, attractive white women get a lot more media attention than Black women and girls who go missing. I can name several white women who have gone missing in the past 20 years — Natalee Holloway, Laci Peterson, Gabby Petito — they’re all over the news. And how many missing Black women or girls can we name…?” 

As I’ve discussed in a previous article I wrote about the intersectionality of racism and sexism, Black women experience more neglect, resentment, and hostile sexism, whereas white women experience more benevolent sexism and receive more care, attention, and assistance as a result.

Gina Barton explained, “White girls are looked at as helpless and as victims and as people in need of protection, whereas Black girls are adultified and looked at as responsible for their own disappearances in some way.”

“Black and Missing,” a four-part documentary series on HBO, profiled a young Black woman who went missing two weeks before Natalee Holloway went missing. The missing Black woman’s aunt was a television producer and reached out to different news organizations and couldn’t get any news coverage about her niece.

Soledad O’Brien, the executive producer of “Black and Missing,” said in an interview with PBS NewsHour, “I know, when I have done documentaries that focus on people of color — ‘Black in America,’ ‘Latino in America’ — I have been told, ‘listen, don’t make it too Black. Make sure that you don’t push away the audience we really care about,’ which is to say the white audience. So I think there’s often a sense of, our audience is … a person who’s appealing, attractive, interesting to me as a producer. And, therefore, that’s [who] should get the focus, vs. thinking about what are the communities that you serve, and how do you serve those communities?”

How You Can Help the Missing Black Women and Girls

The Baha’i writings say that every Baha’i community “should feel it to be its first and inescapable obligation to nurture, encourage, and safeguard every minority…” If Black people were nurtured, protected, and safeguarded in this country, we wouldn’t have 90,333 missing Black women and girls.

Thankfully, some individuals have arisen to raise awareness of this crisis. Two Black women created the Black and Missing Foundation in 2008 to bring attention to the thousands of Black people who go missing each day in the U.S. Websites, blogs, documentaries, and podcasts, such as Our Black Girls, Crime Noir, Black Girl Gone, and Black Girl Missing are tirelessly working to share the stories of these victims as well.

It’s important to support these efforts and follow social media accounts that are dedicated to keeping the public informed about the cases of missing Black women and kids. Everyone should especially share information about people who went missing in their area. Additionally, people should familiarize themselves with the warning signs of human trafficking, the behaviors of an abducted child, and the different types of modern-day slavery. We all need to raise awareness of this crisis and do what we can to help.

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When it comes to mental health awareness and acceptance, young people like Raivynn are turning the tide. As the 11-year-old from Greater Flint Boys & Girls Clubs puts it, “Mental health matters because you can take care of yourself and live a happy life… because your life does matter.”

When kids and teens feel good about their mental and emotional well-being, they can focus on other priorities like keeping up their grades, forming positive relationships and planning for their futures.

This Mental Health Awareness Month, check out these ways Boys & Girls Clubs are empowering young people with the resources, support networks and coping skills to lead their best lives.

Listening to Youth: What Helps You Feel Better?

Boys & Girls Club of Greater Nashua, New Hampshire

How can pre-teens prepare for the emotional challenges ahead of them? Enter Mighty Minds — a social-emotional wellness group for grades 4-6 at the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Nashua. Members meet weekly to practice different coping exercises that strengthen their emotional resilience. For Mental Health Awareness Month, youth participated in a brain design activity and shared which coping strategies are most helpful to them. 

Check out some of their recommendations for useful coping strategies when you’re stressed:

• “When I am really angry, I use fidget toys and they help me calm down.” – Club member, age 10 
• “I think that playing with dogs is very calming.” – Club member, age 11
• “Playing with cats helps me when I am upset because they are cute and cuddly.” – Club member, age 11
• “When I’m having a hard time getting out of bed in the morning, I like to do yoga to help me calm down.” – Club member, age 11
• “The outside breeze is really calming when I am sad.” – Club member, age 12
• “Music helps me express my feelings without putting it into words.” – Club member, age 12

Getting Coping Skills Down to An Art

Boys & Girls Clubs of Elkhart County, Indiana

Designed by Boys & Girls Clubs of Elkhart County, the “Art of Emotion” pilot program provides casual art prompts to support youth with processing and expressing their emotions. 

The program ran for five weeks with kids using drawing to interpret their strengths as superpowers, like playing video games or being a good friend. Through a painting activity, they engaged with colors to label and identify their feelings, helping to support acceptance of emotions in any given moment. In later weeks, youth practiced “the art of letting go” with vanishing water paintings, as well as mindfulness by listening to calming music with a blindfold on to heighten their senses and emotions. 

Members were supportive of each other’s experiences and developed art-based skills for coping with stress that they can practice anywhere. Color us impressed!

Introducing A Four-Legged Friend

Boys & Girls Club of San Marcos, California

It didn’t take long for Otis, a two-year-old golden retriever, to form a special bond with the kids at the Boys & Girls Club of San Marcos. Just ask second-grader Hannah M.: “He makes me feel better when I am having a bad day because he’s cute and soft!”

After many popular afterschool visits, the Club is excited to grow Otis’s impact on youth emotional health by training him to become an official pet therapy dog. In this role, Otis will support youth with developing essential skills like listening, impulse control and social connection. He’ll also de-escalate situations that induce stress, like counseling visits or homework help, encourage physical activity and foster positive animal interactions.

To become a trained therapy dog, Otis has embarked on a certification program. The Club wished him luck at a farewell party, excited for how Otis will make mental health support more accessible and appealing for kids upon his return.

Creating a Safe Haven for Kids and Teens

Boys & Girls Club of Manchester, New Hampshire

The “Zen Den” at the Manchester Boys & Girls Club is more than a safe space; it’s a hub for kids to learn, play and care for themselves. 

Inside is a playground of emotional comforts — from a trampoline and therapeutic swing to a yoga corner, an “affirmation station” and life-size stuffed animals. These assets provide a soothing, sensory-based space for when youth experience sensory overload in other areas of the Club.

In addition to being a physical haven, the Zen Den hosts programs and activities that teach youth how to regulate their emotions, creatively express themselves and more. “I Am” worksheets cover the walls, encouraging positive self-talk (as shown in the video below), while a video game controller activity reminds youth that they are only in control of their emotions and reactions. 

The Self-Care Club also operates out of the Zen Den as well as youth counseling services from community partners. Altogether, Club kids can count on the Zen Den for a safe, calming environment when they need it most!

Helping Kids Keep Calm and Carry On

Boys & Girls Clubs of Grand Rapids Youth Commonwealth, Michigan

At Boys & Girls Clubs of Grand Rapids Youth Commonwealth, supporting youth emotionally starts when they walk in the door. After dropping off their backpacks, youth communicate how they’re feeling with check-ins using The Zones of Regulation, allowing staff to be mindful of their emotional state throughout the day. Cool-down corners are also popular safe spaces for members to emotionally recharge. 

Social work interns monitor these areas and provide youth with de-escalation tools to help process their feelings like deep breathing, journaling, coloring and fidget toys. Since opening these spaces, staff have noticed more members using deep breathing to help calm themselves down, even outside of cool-down corners. Families can even practice coping skills together and discover more Club programs and resources to aid youth well-being at monthly family nights.  

Responding to Kids’ Unique Emotional Needs

Boys & Girls Clubs of Whatcom County, Washington

Supporting youth mental health can look different for each young person. To better equip their staff, Boys & Girls Clubs of Whatcom County invested in training to help build trusting relationships with kids in their everyday interactions. For example, to gain young people’s attention, a staff member is encouraged to use a call-and-response chant or a harmonica instead of actions that might be triggering like raising voices, whistles or clapping.

The Club also provides safe environments and resources that serve members’ unique emotional needs. “Cozy Corners” offer kids a comfy space to process their feelings while noise canceling headphones are soothing for kids experiencing sensory overload. Wobble stools are also set up for high energy kids and “TED Talk Tuesdays” foster meaningful conversations with teens about their mental health. When Club staff discover which strategies work best for each child, they pass them along to families and schools to help build a stronger support network for their members.

Kids and teens are more vocal than ever in acknowledging the importance of mental health. Whether they’re speaking up on social media, at the family dinner table or in classrooms, young people know they’re not alone in what they’re going through and find strength in sharing their experiences. 

With over 5,000 locations worldwide, Boys & Girls Clubs support young people’s mental and emotional well-being by providing caring adult mentors, safe, inclusive spaces and one-on-one support. Learn more about how we empower youth mental health.

Navigating Mental Health Challenges with Youth

Boys & Girls Clubs of America provides youth mentorship, mental health services and meaningful life experiences that boost youth self-esteem, build confidence and contribute to healthy mental, emotional and physical well-being. Find a Club near you or sign up for our newsletter to receive the latest resources and stories.

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