Young people continue to experience rising levels of stress, anxiety, loneliness, and emotional distress. While awareness of youth mental health has increased, many young people report that they and the people around them often do not know how to respond when someone is struggling. The gap is often not a lack of interest in supporting someone else, but a lack of skills and confidence.
The Be There Certificate, created by Jack.org in partnership with Born This Way Foundation, is a free, online mental health course that teaches people how to recognize when someone might be struggling, understand their role in supporting that person, and connect them to the help they need and deserve. Available in Spanish and French alongside English, the Be There Certificate aims to reach young people across the globe, break down mental health stigma, and offer tools for them to support themselves and one another as they navigate their own mental health struggles and the struggles of their peers.
Our goal in May was to turn awareness into action for Mental Health Awareness Month through an organic and paid campaign and online and in-person strategies, organizing a diverse network of partner organizations to help us achieve the milestone goal of 100,000 completed Be There Certificates on the path to the ultimate mission of a generation of people prepared with mental health support skills to care for themselves and their communities.
Despite research showing peer support helps young people reduce anxiety and depression while significantly improving self-esteem, coping skills, and happiness (Simmons et al., 2023), nearly half (47%) of young people report they “don’t know where to go” for mental health resources (Born This Way Foundation Research, 2019). The Generation Be There Campaign bridged that gap, connecting young people directly to a free, online mental health course that teaches them how to care for their own mental health and wellbeing and that of their peers, kindly, safely, and confidently.
Born This Way Foundation’s approach for this campaign centered around high-touch relationships with a diverse group of partners, activating communities to take the free online mental health course through online and in-person engagements. That outreach and strategy included:
1) Warm and cold outreach. Over the course of just under 6 months, BTWF’s small team signed on 186 official Generation Be There partners, focusing outreach on a diverse array of organizations centered around community building and wellbeing.. In sending outreach, the focus was on clear, effective messaging that emphasized the potential for genuine impact and benefit as a result of the evidence-based Be There Certificate.
2) High-touch and customizable engagement. We understood our partners know how to reach their communities best, so our job was to meet them with the resources and examples to help them do that. One key strategy was a customizable toolkit that included talking points, materials to support in-person and online promotion, and organizing examples showing how past partners successfully activated their networks to earn their Be There Certificate. Another key strategy was organizing several virtual meetings and sending regular email correspondents. In these webinars and emails, partners received from BTWF and each other, accessible strategies for organizing around this course. The toolkit received over 1,700 views.
3) Layered communications. We layered paid ads (reaching over 1M impressions, and 10K engagements) with organic strategy (reaching over 300K organic views) and user-generated content (hundreds of partners and individuals posted UGC in support of the campaign) to echo our organizing efforts in direct outreach. We also knew it was important to gather our partners, so we did just that, hosting multiple webinars, presenting at school events from New York to Florida, and hosting our own event in Washington, D.C. with an incentive for youth participants to receive special merch if they complete their Be There Certificate. There were over 590 attendees across in person and virtual events.
4) Most importantly, this campaign, like all of BTWF’s work, was informed and led by young people. Research on young people’s experiences informed both the course and how we organized this campaign, youth leaders from Generation Be There partners led UGC and storytelling around the campaign including at the event in D.C., and BTWF’s Youth Advisory Board played a key role in shaping each element of the campaign, down to its hashtag: #GenBeThere.
We achieved our ultimate goal of crossing more than 100,000 individuals earning their Be There Certificate. Moreover, with over 590 event attendees, 186 partners, and more than 1M impressions, we know that there is even more impact to be had for the Be There Certificate.
We also achieved the goal of reaching a diverse partner network that continues to grow. Our partners pledged to have more than 7,000 Be There Certificates completed in May 2026 and we achieved 7,715 Be There Certificate accounts created in May 2026 (a 71% increase from the prior year May 2025). Our partners were and are engaged, and the results showed.
And we helped shift the conversation. From webinars to in-person events and over 10K social media interactions, we reached our goal of continuing to normalize kind, safe, and informed conversations about mental health.
Lastly, within the course itself, the impact on those who complete their Be There Certificate is significant. 95% of Be There Certificate holders found it to be a useful mental health resource, and after taking the Be There Certificate, 94% of participants feel better able to safely support someone struggling with their mental health. The majority of Certificate holders also report having a supportive conversation using the skills they learned within 6 months of completing the course. These indicators, beyond all else, emphasize the importance and impact of the curriculum.