Headstream's News

Schools are at the frontlines of student mental health and well-being, but rising needs and limited resources make support challenging. The K-12 Mental Health Tech Navigator, created by Headstream with The Jed Foundation and Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute, helps districts identify and fund digital tools that supplement care when counselors and staff are stretched thin. Learn how the updated Navigator offers interactive guidance, expanded resources, and actionable pathways to ensure every student has access to the support they deserve.

Headstream, an initiative under SecondMuse aimed at enhancing the mental well-being of adolescents in marginalized communities, has unveiled its 2024 Headstream Accelerator. Supported by Pivotal Ventures, founded by Melinda Gates, this four-month program began in April and hosts 15 start-ups, empowering their CEOs, founders, and entrepreneurs to collaboratively develop digital health solutions with youth involvement and explore alternative funding avenues. Each participant receives a $30,000 stipend, gains access to curated online and offline events, and taps into Headstream's extensive community of over 500 potential investors and customers. The Accelerator's mission is to spearhead a digital transformation that expands access and resources while championing equity-driven digital health and educational technology (edtech) products geared towards supporting the mental well-being of today's youth in the US. By fostering inclusivity, the program offers a platform for innovators from diverse backgrounds to collectively scale these inclusive technologies. The 14 start-ups selected for this cohort are committed to dismantling the unjust systems affecting BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and multi-hyphenate individuals by developing affordable and accessible mental well-being solutions.

Headstream, an innovation program by SecondMuse that works to improve the mental well-being of adolescents within systematically excluded communities, today announced the members of its 2024 Youth Co-Creator Club, a five-month virtual program from March 25 to July 23 to position BIPOC, Latinos, and LGBTQIA+ youth as co-creators of digital products. The new cohort will consist of 23 members between the ages of 13 and 20 from across the U.S.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there have been record-high rates of adolescent sadness, and there has been an increase in struggles with anxiety, stress, depression, loneliness, and suicide among young people. The rates are significantly higher for Black and Brown youth who have intersectional identities. The use of technology offers a chance to improve access to mental health care services, connect and socialize, and develop skills and learn. Technology has the potential to make it possible for a greater number of young people to receive the assistance they require.

Headstream’s mission to create a positive and inclusive youth digital wellness ecosystem starts with access. This is why we recently launched Headstream Learning Lab (HLL) – a community-building and social-learning platform with open and unlimited access to practices, tools, and resources that support youth innovations in digital health, ed-tech, and social tech sectors. Our first two courses, Youth Co-Creation and Impact Measurement and Management, are tailored for any entrepreneur, innovator, or organization focused on youth digital wellness.

The most pivotal innovations have the power to transform our cultural identity, creating rifts in the status quo that most of us did not even know we wanted, or in some cases, needed. While these innovations may seem to appear out of thin air, they are often rooted in the personal journeys of the innovators who carry with them a deep vision for positive change. In 2022, the Headstream Accelerator continued our mission to bring culturally disruptive digital technologies to life that prioritize the mental wellness of youth people, particularly girls, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA+ teens. At no point was our community louder than during the Headstream Innovation Festival.

After two years of working with young people across the United States, one fact has become painstakingly clear: young people have incredible ideas to build a beautiful internet. Today’s youth are constantly ideating innovative solutions, and yet, are deprived of the fundamental resources to nurture those ideas into fruition. The drive from young people to truly be the creators behind the next wave of social technologies is what ignited Headstream to launch the Youth 2 Innovator (Y2I) Incubator Program. The Y2I Incubator is a 3-month virtual program for young people ages 13-21 across the United States to create their own innovation that uplifts well-being on digital spaces for young people.

When you imagine the word “entrepreneur” what type of individual do you envision in your mind? Oxford Dictionary defines an entrepreneur as, “a person who sets up a business or businesses, taking on financial risks in the hope of profit.” That definition is pretty vague and could apply to just about anyone. In the past two decades, the celebration of entrepreneurs as productive, if not crucial, members of the economy has created new ways for individuals to rely on themselves to improve their own circumstances and their communities. Perceptions about the risk surrounding entrepreneurship have also changed. Over these same two decades, the definition has morphed and stereotyped so that it only seems to apply to a select few. Due to the media, entertainment, and pop culture, there is a false narrative that the definition only applies to young, white, men. This narrow and exclusive framing has direct implications of how we envision entrepreneurs in the 21st century, especially on the next generation who don’t fit those metrics.

In order to build economies that are inclusive and just for communities of LGBTQIA+, Black, Indigenous, and Latino youth, we have to research in a way that is accessible, representative, and just. Headstream has been redefining how we conduct research at our parent company SecondMuse, and our initiative, Digital Delta, is breaking new ground. Digital Delta uses the wisdom of the crowd to guide our understanding of digital youth well-being. By crowdsourcing our insights from hundreds of perspectives, with an emphasis on the voices of young people, we have democratized our research. Currently, 36% of Digital Delta’s insights have been sourced from young people.

Every opportunity that involves a youth serving as an advisor has the potential for mentorship. As a part of the Youth 2 Innovator Program (Y2I) Advisory Board, our cohort of teens were paired with an innovator to not only advise their innovation but to be mentored by them. The beauty of our advisory program is how a teenager anywhere in the US can gain a mentor and influence the design process of an innovation that deeply cares for the well-being of youth through digital spaces. As Headstream prepares to roll out our second iteration of the Y2I Advisory Board program, Youth Advisors Madison Ramos and Rachel Patterson shared their experiences advising Headstream Innovation, Novelly. Their experiences working with Novelly show the myriad of ways mentorship can be manifested and the profound impact it has on the well-being of youth.

In a first of its kind program, Headstream worked with entrepreneurs to reimagine social technology that supports and enhances youth wellbeing. Over a six-month period, the Headstream Accelerator helped 15 innovators scale their innovations to shape the technologies young people depend on as they grow up With a focus on digital solutions for young people in the social tech, ed-tech, and digital health sectors, these 15 entrepreneurs worked diligently to integrate youth voice, specifically LGBTQIA teens, BIPOC teens, teen girls, and those within those intersections, into their innovations.

It has been almost two months since the tragic murder of George Floyd, and unlike any other movement in history, we now have a powerful tool that makes this moment unique: social technology. Racist dogmas and policies are being confronted every second on social media. Social tech has enabled the amplification, connection, and organization of a new generation of young leaders to shape society’s views. As this generation continues to shape our views at Headstream, we had to ask the crucial question -- What is our role in building an anti-racist world?

At Headstream, we know the power and aptitude of digital technology. We also know that we need to empower the current generation of young people to help build and maintain positive inclusive digital spaces. That’s why we were determined to embrace the virtual possibilities of connecting with our Social Tech Science Fair.

More than ever, we as a community need to be supporting today’s youth as they navigate these unprecedented times. Headstream is dedicated to improving the digital well-being of today’s teens, which is why we’re proud to announce the expansion of our program to include a new Incubator and a second Accelerator. Our goal is to create a digital world focused on promoting positivity for teens and we’re excited to highlight the innovators playing such a huge role with this mission.

As each of one of us adapts to unforeseen circumstances and an unpredictable future, now more than ever we need to listen, learn, and support solutions that meet the needs of individuals where they are. At Headstream, we are working on a number of different initiatives to support communities impacted by Covid-19. Before we look forward, we reflect on the design principle that will continue to guide our work, and led us to a group of 15 Headstream Innovators working to create inclusive, supportive and enriching digital places for young people.

The process of understanding complicated, interconnected social challenges can be messy at first. When we embarked on the journey to understand teen wellbeing in today’s hyperconnected world, we knew we had to start by connecting many disparate pieces into a whole. This meant we had to geek out a bit and lean on a mathematical approach to understand how social technologies are impacting teenagers.

There is this emerging realization that technology is not just a tool but is an influential force that forms us and influences our societies.