The Cigna Group Foundation just announced new grants for local communities from the funding source. Their new grant program called Improving Youth Mental Health will offer funding through 2026 to groups or non-profits in ten prioritized/focus areas including Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas.
Each community-based organization must provide programs focused on social-emotional learning (SEL), trauma-informed care, and family-school partnerships because youth mental health is built both at home (kitchen table) and at school (in the classroom). As per Ellie Polack, President of The Cigna Group Foundation, there is a need to urgently and compassionately address today’s youth mental health crisis with resources available through these grants, such that they not only launch new programs but help expand the capacities of trusted partners already familiar with their neighborhood.
There are many ways that a youth mental health grant at an individual level could create resources such as: a bilingual family therapist based at a school-based health center; a trauma-informed after-school sports program; and weekend workshops where caregivers can learn to have conversations about anxiety and depression at home to create relationships & skills, rather than providing one-off events as support to youth in need of continued, culturally relevant support.
Through this process applicants report they have developed coalitions through such things as: partnering with schools and non-profits, making partnerships between healthcare systems and community based youth organisations. The key to successful resolution of youth mental health issues is through collaborative work, since no one agency can provide a complete solution alone. Now that the money is starting to flow into communities, they are optimistic that the grants once received will allow them to convert their knowledge & shared commitment into concrete resources that support the mental health needs of youth.
Source: The Cigna Group Foundation – Grant Program Announcement
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