National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day

National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day was inaugurated by SAMHSA–the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration–over a decade ago to shed a national light on the value of caring for every child’s mental health, and to reaffirm that positive mental health is imperative to a child’s healthy development.

National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day strives to spur public awareness about the needs of children with serious mental illness (SMI), and severe emotional disturbance (SED) and their families, and advocate for seeking treatment.

Over 1,100 communities and 170 national organizations and federal programs across the nation have coordinated, and participated in various community events, youth educational programs, health fairs, art exhibits, and social networking campaigns to celebrate National Children's Mental Health Day. In 2005, SAMHSA organized the first Awareness Day event in Washington D.C., to acknowledge appeals by organizations of care grantees that voiced that national observance of children's mental health awareness would magnify, and further advocate their efforts at the community level. Awareness Day was initiated as a grassroots endeavor among SAMHSA-funded organizations, and has since been developed into other federal

programs and national organizations.

Since the dawn of its creation, National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day has strived to:

• Promote awareness of the effectiveness of community-based mental health and substance use services for children, youth, adolescents, and their families

• Showcase how children's mental health initiatives bolster positive child development, rehabilitation, and resilience

• Demonstrate how children, youth, and adolescents with mental and/or substance use disorders can prosper in their communities.

Over the years, Awareness Day has evolved in breadth, visibility, and advocacy. National and community organizations have fostered relations that have culminated in newfound partnerships, and bolstered pre-existing ones, unearthing more opportunities for the long-lasting sustainability of their programs.

Today, on May 7, let us all observe National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day, and transcend beyond awareness, towards acceptance: accepting that our nation’s future will rest on how we support our youths’ mental health.