Why This Group Handles Grief By Boxing

The Bridge Peer Counseling Center provides 24/7, free, anonymous counseling to students, by students. The student counselors are trained in crisis response and volunteer over 30 hours each week to keep the center running, ensuring mental health support is always accessible on campus.

Ahsan Fareek, or “Best Team,” is a daily, free exercise session for local men to move their bodies, alleviate stress, address mental health concerns and socialize with others. Best Team started with just two members but eventually grew to more than 1,500 people of all ages and walks of life who meet on a daily basis across the group’s 17 branches.

The Gonzales Youth Council, which consists of middle and high school students, took matters into their own hands when it comes to helping their peers address mental health. Through surveys and meetings with school and local government administrators, the Council started facilitating mental health check-ins on Instagram, sharing self-care and coping tips and even seeking training for youth on how to respond when their peers are experiencing a mental health crisis.

To combat emotional distress that many students are facing, schools across the nation are implementing mock funerals, allowing students to figuratively "bury their pain." Although issues at focus range from drunk driving, to poor test scores to peer violence, the overarching goal is to make sure that students feel that they're being heard by the adults that surround them.

People who work in caring professions often experience vicarious trauma, and don't always take the time to seek care for themselves. Rino Consulting Solutions aims to help solve this issue, especially as it impacts people of color, through "a unique mashup of professional guidance and outdoor-based therapy."

Healing Hurt People (HHP), the program that helped save his life, now employs men like Jermaine McCorey - men who used to be a part of a violent life on the streets of Philadelphia - to reach out to boys and young men in the emergency department and help get them through empathy and personalized support. HHP's goal is to help young people recognize the role trauma has played in shaping their lives, to respect and honor their experience and to help them avoid fueling the cycle of violence.

With pressures of depression, anxiety, and suicide on the rise, teenagers in the United States are challenged to find the comfortable outlet and accessibility for emotional support. The Crisis Text Line offers a counseling service through mobile texting, which reduces the shame that can occur when approaching an in-person counselor, and expands access to professional mental health counseling nationwide.

Communities and states across the U.S. are implementing peer support programs to address first responders' mental health challenges. The most notable comes from the New York City Fire Department, which formalized peer support by training firefighters to support one another rather than relying on outside clinicians. This model has expanded nationwide, with approximately 15,000 International Association of Fire Fighters members now trained in peer support.

Northwestern University's Curious Life Certificate is a personal development program that teaches students emotional intelligence, habit formation and other life skills. The program addresses rising mental health challenges by focusing on three channels of self-awareness: physical sensations, emotions, and stories, drawing on evidence-based psychological frameworks and cognitive behavioral therapy principles. Pre- and post-program data show participants see an overall increase in their emotional intelligence after completing the courses.

The Dallas County deflection program diverts low-level, non-violent offenders (many experiencing homelessness and mental illness) away from jail and toward voluntary mental health, substance abuse, and stabilization services. The program served 918 people last fiscal year and started a newer eight-bed pilot that connected 11 clients with services in its first month of operation.