Turning Tragedy into Action: My Fight for Mental Health Reform

Two years ago, when I was fifteen, four of my friends attempted suicide. They were of various socioeconomic statuses, genders, and sexualities, from different schools, and family structures. Yet, they all felt their only option was to take their own lives. That was the year I lost the luxury of feeling that my friends were safe, but it also made me aware of something: they were all lucky. All four of them survived because they had access to mental health professionals when they needed them most.

As this happened, I felt extremely powerless. What could I do when facing such vast, complex, and seemingly unfixable problems? I was lucky enough to access an opportunity that took my feelings of inadequate inaction and turned them into tangible steps toward change. The RAC Teen Justice Fellowship served as an excellent jumping-off point for me to realize my ability to create small and large changes on issues I care about. The fellowship gave me the tools to organize my peers around a problem we were passionate about, and the perspective to take that organization and direct it towards an achievable goal.

I realized the best avenue to effect real change lay within interacting with local government. As I spent the following months learning about the New York State Legislature, lobbying, and community organizing, I began to see that real change is complicated. It requires hard work, a willingness to fail, and an unwavering hope for a better tomorrow. Most importantly, however, I saw that real change is possible. The best thing working with the RAC showed me was my ability to influence the world around me. It wouldn't be easy, it wouldn't always be fun, but it was possible. And that possibility is all I needed to keep working towards a better tomorrow.

As I witnessed the youth mental health crisis first-hand, I continued exploring local legislation that could serve as a potential solution. If the root of the problem is a lack of access to mental health professionals, increasing the accessibility of these professionals to students would provide a safety net for every student who is at risk or needs help. I worked on New York State bills S7558 and A7743 in the Senate and Assembly, which required the New York Department of Education to require public schools to hire mental health professionals to meet the recommended student-to-mental health provider ratios.

My journey of working on these bills was long, difficult, and incredibly inspiring. Throughout this process, I was forced to readjust my approach and reflect on what my community needed, and what those in power were willing to listen to. Despite initially working on these bills alone, I eventually saw that true organizational power came from working with a team. I managed to build a team of almost 20 teen organizers across New York who helped widen the reach of our campaign. Along the way, I was fortunate enough to pick up different mentors who helped show me how to communicate with those in power and train and manage a team of dedicated changemakers.

I wish I could say we achieved our goal, but this is not the end and I will keep working to ensure students across the state have access to the mental health support they deserve. Legislative change is hard, and convincing the state to spend millions of dollars is even harder. What I can be proud of, however, is what my team and I accomplished together. We got over 850 signatures for our petition, had almost a dozen meetings with legislators, and learned a lot in the process. What I would have once considered a failure, I now know is only the first step in my own process towards becoming a better changemaker.

Right now, I'm taking the skills I learned from this experience and applying them differently. I'm currently a staffer for a local State Assembly candidate who is running on a platform of reinvesting in New York's public education and mental healthcare and am enjoying getting involved in policy and politics at a more local level. Throughout my experience over the last two years, my favorite moments were when I realized how much more I had to learn, and I now get to experience that often. Every day I get to learn a new skill or lesson that I'll be able to apply to my next organizing project, and I can't ask for more than that.

It is easy to get lost in how much is wrong in the world. Sometimes I thought there was nothing I could do, and that no one was working to make things better. I've been lucky enough to learn just how wrong I am over the last two years. I know there are teams of people working tirelessly to make the world better every day, and I can't wait until I get the opportunity to join one of them. I hope you take away from this article your own ability to make change. The RAC helped me realize that, and I hope you realize it too.

Even though my work was focused on New York, everyone has the opportunity to make change at the federal level by urging Congress to pass the Mental Health Services for Students Act (H.R3713/S.1884). This bipartisan bill would provide grant funding for public schools to expand mental health services, including by partnering with community mental health professionals to provide on-site care, training school personnel to recognize mental and behavioral health issues, facilitating community partnerships to improve mental health education, and establishing mechanisms for students to report incidents or plans of violence by other students, adolescents, or adults. Urge your members of Congress to support the Mental Health Services for Students Act.