About AIM

AIM is bridging the gap between research and access to care for youth struggling with their mental health by finding, funding, and implementing evidence-based treatments and empowering youth to discover their own mental health solutions.

Our vision is simple: a world of mentally healthy youth.

What We Do

Research

AIM finds, funds, and implements evidence-based interventions for youth mental health. From diagnostic tools to early interventions and digital therapeutics, AIM funds research that is poised for scale, impact, and accessibility.

We support:

  • Early-career scientists and Clinical Science Fellows to launch the next generation of leaders in youth mental health.
  • Emerging research with the strongest potential to improve care for young people.
  • Implementation efforts that bring evidence-based treatments to the youth and families who need them most.

Youth Empowerment
and Engagement

The AIM Ideas Lab is a youth-driven research and advocacy program that equips high school students to investigate and address pressing mental health issues in their communities.

Through the AIM Ideas Lab:

  • High school students are paired with mentors and trained in Youth Participatory Action Research.
  • Students are empowered to lead the conversation around current and emerging youth mental health challenges affecting their peers.
  • Students utilize their lived experience to design and conduct peer-to-peer mental health surveys and develop insights on their findings.
  • Young researchers bring a critical perspective to the research practice pipeline – shaping solutions that are inclusive, relevant, and driven by youth.

Understanding
Youth Mental Health

AIM believes in continuing to broaden our perspective of mental health and provide tools and empowerment to the community along the way. 

We provide toolkits and resources on our blog monthly and bring our research insights to life through our programming. 

Awareness

We are building a movement with a positive, forward-thinking focus. 

Our annual AIM for Awareness Design Challenge engages hundreds of youth artists each year to create display ads that can provide hope to someone struggling with mental health. The encourages youth to speak up and seek help, or an ad might encourage others to be empathetic.

Our Purpose

AIM is not disorder* or institution-specific, which means that we fund the search for cures for all mental disorders in youth, and find the best, cutting-edge research teams and individuals, regardless of where they are based.

Our purpose touches lives in a very personal way, and gives hope to children and families facing the struggles that mental health challenges bring.

*Youth mental health disorders include, but are not limited to, ADHD, anxiety, depression, mood disorders, schizophrenia, Tourette syndrome, OCD, autism spectrum disorders, and eating disorders. We also address the bi-products of some of these brain disorders including addiction, self-harm, and suicide.

Frequently Asked Questions
What is the mission of AIM Youth Mental Health?

AIM Youth Mental Health is bridging the gap between research and access to care for youth struggling with their mental health by finding, funding, and implementing evidence-based treatments and empowering youth to discover their own mental health solutions.

Our vision is simple: a world of mentally healthy youth.

We AIM to Bridge the gap between research and practice: AIM’s investments in Clinical Science and Equity – Implementation Grants have discovered groundbreaking youth mental health solutions. Among them: early interventions for treating anxiety in preschoolers, predicting suicide, and family-centered approaches to support teens with eating disorders. Now, with this body of knowledge, AIM is focusing on taking tested treatments out of the lab and into communities where and when youth need it.

We AIM to Empower Youth: The AIM Ideas Lab trains high school students to design and conduct their own scientific peer-to-peer youth mental health surveys, analyze their findings, and make recommendations for youth-driven solutions. In the 2022 Monterey County, CA pilot, the youth researchers discovered that teens lack an adult in their lives they trust enough to go to when they have a mental health challenge or crisis. The sad truth is that we know that the #1 protective factor for youth mental health is a trusted adult.

We AIM to complete the circle of care: When that trusted adult – trained as a mental health first aider – helps a youth find treatment, we AIM to complete the circle and ensure that the clinician is trained with evidence-based tools to treat the specific mental health challenge the young person is suffering.

We AIM to create communities where children, teens, and young adults can thrive and grow into healthy, happy adults.

  1. Fund research that leads to better treatments today.
  2. Challenge existing conventions as the status quo is failing our children.
  3. Focus on youth as 75% of mental illness begins in adolescence.
  4. Concentrate on early intervention and prevention.
  5. Educate that solutions will be found through science and that investing in research is critical.
  6. Take evidence-based solutions to the front-lines where youth are being treated.
  7. Work with the best and brightest doctors from around the world.
  8. Engage youth with lived experiences to help guide the research.
  9. Streamline the granting process as top clinical researchers can spend 50% of their time writing grant applications when they should be working with our children.
  10. Raise awareness through community programs that are positive and free from stigma.

1 in 5 of today’s youth have, or will have a serious mental illness.

We AIM to stop the silence around youth mental health by raising awareness and funding groundbreaking research, so we can begin to find real solutions for the youth of today.

Support AIM for Youth Mental Health.

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AIM Youth Mental Health is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Federal Tax ID: #47-3992060