Mental health

NYC Youth Agenda has been shining a spotlight on mental health since our first NYC Youth Agenda in 2021 and it has been one of our key policy areas every year since. Over the years, our advocacy emphasized expanding access to mental health services in public schools, Out of School Time (OST) spaces and community hubs.

In 2024, we shifted from solely calling for more access to envisioning what it means to truly thrive. We were no longer just advocating for services—we were re-imagining what healing looks like in schools and communities. We honed in on a recommendation to create Joy Centers- an innovative mental health infrastructure run by and for young people to support youth well-being. This idea emerged by analyzing data from Winter Dataland 2023, the Youth Ask Youth (YAY) survey 2023, and lived experiences shared in community spaces. We explored redirecting funding from punitive systems (like school safety officers) toward joyful, healing-centered spaces. A consistent theme was that youth lack access to therapists, counselors, and affirming spaces. So, we wanted to capitalize on young people’s desire to be part of the solution as peer mental health advocates in the Joy Centers we were envisioning.