In the Fall of 2022 we announced a pause for our grants cycle to reevaluate, assess, and decide specific local youth mental wellness needs. Youth and families are experiencing unprecedented wait lists for mental health care and crisis levels of mental health needs for kids, teens, and young people. The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened an already tenuous youth mental health care system.
While our regular grants cycle is paused, we will still consider funding requests for high need areas, such as maternal mental health, school-based mental health services, and supporting teens and young adults as they transition from pediatric to adult mental health services.
We are especially interested in supporting efforts that bring mental health care to specific populations of youth and families who are underserved, such as LGBTQ+ youth, youth in the juvenile justice system, and youth in the foster care system.
We plan to issue a Request for Applications (RFA) process that responds to the mental health needs of youth, young people, and families in our community. We look for deliberate and intentional partnerships, encouraging community partners to propose ideas and solutions. The intent of this pause is to listen and learn from youth, and to take the time to turn that listening into action with the creation of an RFA process for future funding.