Prioritizing Children’s Mental Health on a National Scale

Vanguard supports a social marketing public awareness effort known as the Caring for Every Child’s Mental Health Campaign, working with a network of local communities to build awareness of and communications capacity for supporting children with mental health needs and their families. We design trainings that help community-based organizations be more effective in engaging youth, families and providers so families can connect with services and supports that help children thrive. At the national level, we coordinate National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day, a high-profile, multi-faceted event in Washington, D.C., that allows SAMHSA to showcase community-level successes, release new data about the effectiveness of services, and bring exposure to children’s mental health by recruiting subject matter experts and public figures to lend their voices and experiences. These public figures have included Olympian Michael Phelps, artists Demi Lovato and Cyndi Lauper, and entertainer Howie Mandel, to name a few. In 2017, our integrated media efforts resulted in 33 million Twitter impressions and 602 million media impressions. We also secured partnerships with more than 160 organizations that support children’s and families’ behavioral and physical health care needs.