Youth mental wellbeing

Our Approach

The Youth Mental Wellbeing Co-Lab brings together 25 organizations taking different paths toward the common goal of building young people’s mental health worldwide. Over five years, the Solutions Insights Lab is studying what their collective work has revealed about how to support young people most effectively and making that knowledge accessible within the Co-Lab and beyond.

Through hundreds of interviews and focus groups with a wide variety of stakeholders, SIL is discovering what becomes possible when organizations operate as part of a shared learning ecosystem, and tracking the urgent narrative and mindset shifts that are happening around youth mental health worldwide. As insights circulate, they spark connections across organizations and fuel shared reflection on the evidence. Over time, this growing body of shared knowledge helps form a community of practice that bridges insight and action, strengthening the field’s capacity to learn and adapt.

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What We Discovered

What does it take to support youth mental wellbeing across diverse contexts? The Lab is answering this question by drawing on in-depth interviews and collective learning across the 25 organizations in the Youth Mental Wellbeing Co-Lab. We are identifying patterns in what helps young people engage, what makes support feel relevant and trustworthy, and what allows programs to take root and endure.

Key insights emerging from these conversations include the importance of engaging young people through the spaces, activities, and communities they already trust; the role of belonging and peer connection as core interventions; the need to localize both language and diagnostic tools; and the value of trusted adults working alongside clinical specialists. The project is also revealing how funding structures, evidence demands, and support for caregivers and frontline leaders shape what is possible in practice.