Expanding mental healthcare in response to the COVID-19 pandemic

Adolescents who are of color and/or LGBTQ+ face significant barriers to accessing mental healthcare and services. The Upswing Fund for Adolescent Mental Health was created to address this need by providing resources to organizations serving these populations.

The Upswing Fund aims to support a more integrated and higher quality adolescent mental health system for adolescents who are of color and/or LGBTQ+ by providing direct resources to organizations serving these populations in two ways:

• First, through Surge Capacity grants providing immediate funding to direct-service organizations that provide mental health care to adolescents, and

• Second, through Systems Enabler grants providing resources to organizations to support innovative approaches in adolescent mental health services that make more resilient systems to enable access to care.

Collectively, our grants are impacting the adolescent mental health community by:

• Empowering care and service providers to continue providing impactful and culturally responsive mental health interventions, as well as expand care quality, reach, and services to deepen long-term impact.
• Integrating technological innovations, such as telehealth and mobile apps, with care systems and services in order to more effectively reach adolescents.