Mental Health Ambassadors: New Findings Show Youth-Led Training Builds Confidence and Community Readiness
Pothen, E., Herath Mudiyanselage, C., Joseph, B., Nakanishi, C., & Weiler, L. M. (2026). Mental health ambassadors: A model for supporting youth mental health within mentoring programs. Youth, 6, 80. https://doi.org/10.3390/youth6020080
Introduction
Youth mental health has reached crisis levels in the United States, with emergency department visits for mental health concerns among young people rising sharply over the past decade (Bommersbach et al., 2023). Pothen and colleagues (2026) respond to this challenge by introducing the Mental Health Ambassador (MHA) program—an eight-session, community-embedded initiative grounded in Positive Youth Development (PYD) that trains both youth and adult mentors to recognize, discuss, and respond to mental health concerns before they escalate to clinical levels. The authors make the case that mentoring organizations are well-positioned to serve as an early, accessible layer of mental health support—one that can help young people feel comfortable seeking help and connect them to clinical services when needed (McQuillin et al., 2022).
Methods
This mixed-method pre-post pilot study enrolled nine youth (ages 14–18) and eleven adult mentors from five Minnesota counties during Spring and Fall 2025. The eight-session curriculum—averaging 19 hours per cohort—combined Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) for adults, the Be There training for youth, suicide prevention, trauma and ACEs content, and a culminating youth-led community advocacy project. Quantitative surveys measured resource awareness, preparedness, confidence in mental health conversations, confidence in referrals, and intention to intervene at pre- and post-test. Post-program focus groups were analyzed using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2023).
Results
Retention was 100%. Both groups showed statistically significant gains across nearly all outcomes. Effect sizes were large across all variables: adult resource awareness (g = −1.59, p < .001); youth preparedness (g = −1.21, p = .004); youth confidence in referrals (g = −1.12, p = .006). The one non-significant finding was youth intention to intervene (p = .187). Qualitatively, participants described the youth-led advocacy project as the program’s most transformative element—shifting youth from passive learners to active community contributors. As these results demonstrate, a structured, youth-led mental health literacy program embedded in existing mentoring organizations can meaningfully increase both youth and adult readiness to support peers in mental health distress.
Discussion
The findings suggest that mentoring programs places where young people already feel safe and known—can be practical, low-pressure spaces for early mental health support (McQuillin et al., 2019). The youth-led advocacy piece is what sets this program apart: rather than stopping at awareness, participants actually do something with what they learn, which is where most mental health literacy programs fall short (Ozer, 2017). The authors are also adamant about the risks of putting youth in peer support roles—young people need adult backup, defined boundaries, and a clear plan for when to hand off to a professional (Bilello et al., 2024; Roach et al., 2021). Practitioners should note that the sample was small and all-female, so results should be interpreted as promising rather than definitive.
Implications for Mentoring Programs
This study makes a compelling case that mentoring programs do not need to build new infrastructure to address youth mental health—they need to better utilize what already exists. Embedding structured mental health literacy training into existing mentor–mentee relationships, with clear role boundaries and referral pathways, positions programs as an accessible first layer of care. The youth-led advocacy model is particularly instructive: when young people design and lead community-facing projects, they develop both competence and agency—the core outcomes PYD frameworks predict will drive long-term well-being (Lerner et al., 2021). Programs that replicate this model should pair it with deliberate “support the supporter” protocols to prevent compassion fatigue among youth peer helpers.
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