Resources
To Address Opioids And Diseases Of Despair, Communities Must Build Resilience
PI's Larissa Estes and Benjamin F. Miller of Well Being Trust call for a national resilience strategy to address 'diseases of despair,' such as substance misuse and suicide: "Only by understanding the underlying causes of these diseases that are holding our communities hostage will we be able to adequately support those who need immediate treatment and “space” to heal; prevent addiction from taking hold of our loved ones and neighbors; and shore up the overall health and well-being of entire communities."
Building mental health and wellbeing for men and boys
In this piece in Thrive Global, PI's Sheila Savannah and Movember's Craig Martin describe how trauma and isolation adversely impact young men and boys in the United States. They highlight the Making Connections initiative, which aims to improve community conditions so that young men and boys can count on a sense of belonging and connectedness. They mention several collaboratives within the initiative that use creative, community-level prevention strategies to reduce stress, trauma, and isolation.
A prescription for ... resiliency?
This Politico article, "A prescription for...resiliency?", highlights the importance of forging strong parental or alternative caregiver bonds in early childhood, citing Prevention Institute's work with Honolulu's Kalihi Valley Instructional Bike Exchange and Kokua Kalihi Valley Comprehensive Family Services. Loving early childhood relationships, she maintains, likely protect against chronic mental health and physical conditions that often appear in adults who suffered trauma in their early years.
Un-Mute' for a Life-Changing Conversation
PI's Sheila Savannah writes about Making Connections to mark World Suicide Prevention Day.
Adverse childhood experiences, opioid overdose and suicide are urgent and related public health challenges that have consequences for all of us. Download tools, factsheets, talking points, and other resources from APHA.
Active Implementation: Frameworks for Program Success
This article from the National Implementation Research Network lays out the stages of program implementation to improve outcomes for young people.
A Brief Introduction to Communities of Practice
A brief and general introduction to what communities of practice are, and why researchers and practitioners in so many different contexts find them useful as an approach to knowing and learning.
Book Review: Cultivating Communities of Practice
A summary of Cultivating Communities of Practice, with a focus on the chapter on 'Seven principles for Cultivating Communities of Practice.'
Mobilizing Action for Resilient Communities through Policy and Advocacy
This toolkit supports network engagement in policy and advocacy efforts. Examples from networks across the country bring the work to life and companion infographics make it easy to incorporate content in your own presentations.
Masculine Norms and Men’s Health: Making the Connections (Promundo)
This report from Promundo provides an overview of the current state of men’s health globally and illustrates the direct connections between health-risk behaviors and salient masculine norms. Presenting a new analysis of men’s health using data from the 2016 Global Burden of Disease (GBD), the report outlines the leading causes of morbidity and mortality among men globally and presents evidence on the connections between hegemonic masculine norms and influential health-risk behaviors, including poor diet, substance use, occupational hazards, unsafe sex, and limited health-seeking behavior.
No Going Back: A COVID-19 Cultural Strategy Activation Guide for Artists and Activists
This illustrated resource points creators to ways they can make moving narratives that advance policy demands that are now within reach. It lays out frameworks and tools that support social change movements to harness the power of artists and culture makers in painting a picture of a more equitable and just future. It also highlights resources for artists who have been hard hit economically and professionally.
The Future of Healing: Shifting From Trauma Informed Care to Healing Centered Engagement
This article by Shawn Ginwright, Ph.D., lays out a new path to healing with healing centered engagement at the core.
Why Am I Always Being Researched?
A guidebook from Chicago Beyond for community organizations, researchers, and funders to help us get from insufficient understanding to more authentic truth.
American Psychological Association's First-Ever Guidelines for Practice with Men and Boys
The American Psychological Association's first-ever guidelines to help psychologists work with men and boys.
Social Determinants of Mental Health
This paper from the World Health Organization was developed to enhance our knowledge about the many interacting forces that between them shape individual and collective levels of mental health and wellbeing, and set out actions that can be pursued to promote and protect good mental health.
The Opposite of Deficit-Based Language Isn’t Asset-Based Language. It’s Truth-Telling.
This article lays out the compelling reason to be more specific in our language when talking about communities that have been interntionally cut off from opportunity.
Movember Conversations - Guide for talking to men about mental health
Movember Conversations gives you practical guidance on how to support the men in your life who might be struggling. This interactive tool lets you experiment and practice questions and responses, giving you the skills and confidence to approach difficult conversations.
The Power of Touch, Especially for Men
This article discusses the importance of touch between men, which many men in the U.S. are missing.
American men's hidden crisis: they need more friends!
An article that addresses the epidemic of loneliness among men in the U.S.
The service dogs helping veterans with PTSD
In their blog in Mental Health America (July 22, 2019), PI's Ruben Cantu and Dana Fields-Johnson highlight several Making Connections coalitions that are working to improve mental health for communities of color, immigrants and refugees, and the LGBTQ community.
To Improve Mental Health, We Need To Take On Social and Racial Injustice
In their blog in Mental Health America, PI's Ruben Cantu and Dana Fields-Johnson highlight several Making Connections coalitions that are working to improve mental health for communities of color, immigrants and refugees, and the LGBTQ community.
How a bike exchange in Honolulu supports community mental health
This blog by PI's Christine Williams and Wil Crary, featured by Mental Health America, describes how KVIBE, an instructional bike exchange in Honolulu, Hawaii, supports the mental health and wellbeing of men and boys by addressing community needs like social cohesion, a sense of belonging, and physical activity.
A community prevention approach to mental health can improve physical health outcomes as well
This blog summarzies a recent Prevention Institute paper, "Back to Our Roots," and how health leaders can, and should, go upstream and use community prevention knowledge to influence mental health outcomes.
Informal Gathering Spaces for Healing Community Trauma
In her blog in Shelterforce, PI's Abena Asare explores the role that safe, inclusive, and supportive gathering spaces play in healing from trauma.
Socially Connected Communities: Solutions for Social Isolation
This report highlights how social isolation is not a personal choice or individual problem, but one that is rooted in community design, social norms, and systemic injustices.
Resources for Network Reflection and Evaluation
Reflection and continuous quality improvement are essential processes for both effective movement building and trauma-informed practice. MARC shares their resources focused on network evaluation.
When Boys Become "Boys": Development, Relationships, and Masculinity by Dr. Judy Chu
Based on a two-year study that followed boys from pre-Kindergarten through first grade, When Boys Become Boys offers a new way of thinking about boys’ development. Through focusing on a critical moment of transition in boys’ lives, Judy Y. Chu reveals boys’ early ability to be emotionally perceptive, articulate, and responsive in their relationships, and how these “feminine” qualities become less apparent as boys learn to prove that they are boys primarily by showing that they are not girls.
The Lonely American by Jacqueline Olds, MD, and Richard S. Schwartz, MD
In The Lonely American, cutting-edge research on the physiological and cognitive effects of social exclusion and emerging work in the neurobiology of attachment uncover startling, sobering ripple effects of loneliness in areas as varied as physical health, children's emotional problems, substance abuse, and even global warming.
Annual Policy Conference on Child, Adolescent, and Young Adult Behavioral Health
Since 1988, this annual conference has been a leader in promoting the development of the research base essential to improved service systems for children and youth with mental health challenges and their families. The conference is sponsored by USF and the Children's Mental Health Network, and is on hold until 2022.
American Public Health Association
The APHA Annual Meeting and Expo is the largest and most influential yearly gathering of public health professionals, bringing the public health community together to experience robust scientific programming, networking, social events, poster sessions and more.
College of Behavioral Health Leadership
CBHL is the place where behavioral health leaders collaborate to grow and transform communities across the nation. It is an association committed to expanding the capacity of leaders, both individually and collectively, to drive transformational change. It offer leaders inspiration, tools, and professional connections to grow our knowledge and ability to improve health outcomes.
HJA's goal is to create equal access to culturally responsive victim services for male survivors of violence, especially males of color who are disproportionately impacted by violence, and to catalyze a national commitment to better serve this population, by supporting effective evidence-based models, programs, practices and outreach/messaging strategies and by promoting collaborative learning across like-minded communities.
Each year, the Mental Health America Annual Conference brings together MHA affiliates, community stakeholders, peers, caregivers, providers, government officials, media and more from across the country to discuss important and emerging mental health issues.
National Alliance of City and County Health Officials
NACCHO is the premier public health conference where local health department staff, partners, and funders share the latest research, ideas, strategies and innovations across public health focus areas.
National Network of Public Health Institutes
Since 2001, the Annual NNPHI Conference is the only national meeting that supports and highlights the work of the nation’s public health institutes. NNPHI members lead conference programming that explores fresh concepts and strategies for supporting healthy communities at the local, state, and federal levels.
The Safe States Alliance is a national network working to strengthen the practice of injury and violence prevention.
Society for Public Health Education
The Society for Public Health Education is a nonprofit, independent professional association that represents a diverse membership of nearly 4,000 health education professionals and students in the United States and 25 international countries.
Children's Mental Health Network
Each week, the Children's Mental Health Network highlights the best of the best in news and information related to children’s mental health advocacy in Friday Update.
Since 2013, The Partnership for Male Youth has published a weekly email newsletter that includes summaries of the previous week's articles in the scientific and popular media that relate to adolescent and young adult (AYA) male health issues.
Promundo is a global leader in advancing gender equality and preventing violence by engaging men and boys in partnership with women, girls, and individuals of all gender identities. Their research, programs, and advocacy efforts show that exploring positive models of “what it means to be a man” and promoting healthy, respectful masculinity leads to improvements in the lives of women and girls, as well as in men’s own lives, and the lives of individuals of all gender identities.
Public Health Awakened is a national network of public health professionals organizing for health, equity, and justice. We work with social justice movements on strategic and collective action to create a world in which everyone can thrive and to resist the threats faced by communities of color and low-income communities.
Alliance for Men and Boys of Color - National
The Alliance for Boys and Men of Color is a national network of hundreds of community and advocacy organizations who come together to advance race and gender justice by transforming policies that are failing boys and men of color and their families, and building communities full of opportunity.
Hogg Foundation - Mental health headlines
The Hogg Foundation, based in Texas, works with communities to strengthen conditions that support mental health and eliminate conditions that harm mental health. You can sign up to get mental health news and resources, funding announcements, and more delivered to your inbox.
Movember is the leading charity changing the face of men’s health. They were the cornerstone funder for the Making Connections initiative.
Movember is the leading charity changing the face of men’s health on a global scale, focusing on mental health and suicide prevention, prostate cancer, and testicular cancer. Movember funded the Making Connections initiative for five years and continues to provide support to several of the original sites.
We work to transform society by promoting healthy, respectful manhood and offering trainings and educational resources for companies, government agencies, schools, and community groups.
The Center for Cultural Power is a women of color, artist-led organization, inspiring artists and culture makers to imagine a world where power is distributed equitably and where we live in harmony with nature. We support artists through fellowships, training and opportunities for activation. We create intersectional stories and content addressing issues of migration, climate, gender and racial justice. We engage groups in cultural strategy and organize artists in issues that inspire them. Together with allies, we are co-creating a field of cultural strategy with organizations and practitioners through convenings, design teams and strategy tables.
Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
CLASP is a national, nonpartisan, anti-poverty nonprofit advancing policy solutions for low-income people. We develop practical yet visionary strategies for reducing poverty, promoting economic opportunity, and addressing barriers faced by people of color. With over 50 years' experience at the federal, state, and local levels, we're fighting back in today's threatening political climate while advancing our vision for the future.
Children's Mental Health Network
The Children’s Mental Health Network strives to be a fair and independent source of information about children’s mental health, creating a forum for sharing diverse ideas and opinions about ways to improve the lives of children and youth living with mental health conditions and their families.
Cities United supports a national network of mayors who are committed to reducing the epidemic of homicides and shootings among young Black men and boy ages 14 to 24 by 50%.
College of Behavioral Health Leadership
CBHL is the place where behavioral health leaders collaborate to grow and transform communities across the nation. We are an association committed to expanding the capacity of leaders, both individually and collectively, to drive transformational change. We offer leaders inspiration, tools, and professional connections to grow our knowledge and ability to improve health outcomes.
If it takes a village to raise a child, what does it take to strengthen, stimulate and create healthy villages? The Forward Promise National Program Office works to support the networks and relationships that surround boys and young men of color (BYMOC) and counter the effects of historical and contemporary trauma in America.
Since 1999, FrameWorks has supported nonprofits to communicate more effectively. Their partners have used their insights and guidance to secure more equitable, inclusive, and sustainable policies.
For more than 30 years, FUTURES has been providing groundbreaking programs, policies, and campaigns that empower individuals and organizations working to end violence against women and children around the world.
Human Impact Partners transforms the field of public health to center equity and builds collective power with social justice movements.
Our mission to mobilize men to use their strength for creating cultures free from violence, especially men's violence against women.
Men's Health Network (MHN) is a national non-profit organization whose mission is to reach men, boys, and their families where they live, work, play, and pray with health awareness and disease prevention messages and tools, screening programs, educational materials, advocacy opportunities, and patient navigation.
The mission of the National Compadres Network is to strengthen and re-root the capacity of individuals, families and communities to honor, rebalance, and redevelop the authentic identity, values, traditions and indigenous practices of Chicano, Latino, Native, Raza and other communities of color as the path to the honoring of all their relations and life long well being.
Obama Foundation My Brother's Keeper Alliance
MBK Alliance leads a cross-sector national call to action focused on building safe and supportive communities for boys and young men of color where they feel valued and have clear pathways to opportunity.
Othering and Belonging Institute
The Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley brings together researchers, organizers, stakeholders, communicators, and policymakers to identify and eliminate the barriers to an inclusive, just, and sustainable society in order to create transformative change. We are a diverse and vibrant hub generating work centered on realizing a world where all people belong, where belonging entails being respected at a level that includes the right to both contribute and make demands upon society and political and cultural institutions.
Today the Partnership for Male Youth is the only national organizations whose sole focus is on advancing the health and well being of AYA males. The work of the Partnership for Male Youth has a very specific focus on what it characterizes as the “Double U’s” – for the terms unique and unmet. Many other national organizations address adolescent health issues either in non-sex specific ways, or, if they do address adolescent health issues in a sex specific way, only in terms of females. What makes the work of the Partnership for Male Youth distinct from and of added value to these efforts is the fact that it focuses on the health care needs of AYA males that are both unique to their sex and unmet.
PolicyLink is a national research and action institute advancing racial and economic equity by Lifting Up What Works.
PolicyLink seeks to deliver and scale results in the following arenas:
Equitable Economy: Promote economic inclusion and ownership to eliminate poverty, shrink inequality, and increase mobility.
Healthy Communities of Opportunity: Create and maintain opportunity-rich communities in all neighborhoods and all regions of the country through strong networks and social capital, equitable development, and infrastructure investments that enable low-income people and communities of color to thrive.
Just Society: Build power and expand agency to ensure that all systems and institutions are just, free of racial bias, and lead to a vibrant democracy where all, especially the most vulnerable, can participate and prosper.
Promundo is a global leader in advancing gender equality and preventing violence by engaging men and boys in partnership with women, girls, and individuals of all gender identities.
RYSE creates safe spaces grounded in social justice for young people to love, learn, educate, heal, and transform lives and communities.
The Representation Project (TRP) is a leading global non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring all humans achieve their full potential, unencumbered by limiting gender norms. We use documentary films, education, and activism to shift the public’s attitudes and behavior around gender in order to transform culture.
Vital Village is a network of residents and agencies committed to maximizing child, family, and community wellbeing.
Every warrior has unique challenges and goals. That’s why we provide a variety of veteran programs and services to help you take the steps that are right for you. What’s more, thanks to the tremendous support of our donors, you never pay a penny to get the help you need to build the future you deserve.
Preventing and Addressing Community Trauma
This conversation on addressing and preventing community trauma reveals how different communities define and experience trauma, from historical events that have long-lasting systemic repercussions to emerging challenges such as displacement. Participants also explore solutions, including building community and connection, and establishing places and opportunities for men and boys to find a sense of belonging, build trust, and discover their stories and identities.
Exploring Healthy Masculinities part 1
In part one of this two-part podcast, Charles Corprew from What's Your Revolution explores healthy masculinities with Making Connections community leaders from Canton, CT, New Orleans, LA and Albuquerque, NM who share how vulnerability, art and self-care play a significant part in the work that they do.
Exploring Healthy Masculinities Part 2
Charles Corprew from What's Your Revolution returns for the second part of this two-part podcast to continue the conversation about healthy masculinities with community leaders from Kokua Kalihi Valley, HI, Tacoma, WA, and Boston, MA, who talk about the importance of mentorship, food justice, and community.
PI's Jill Hodges interviews leaders from Albuquerque NM, Oklahoma City, OK, Kokua Kalihi Valley, HI, Tacoma, WA, and Boston, MA. The guests discuss how they are expanding the influence of indigenous wisdom and cultural practices to heal communities.
Prevention Institute’s Jill Hodges interviews leaders from Albuquerque, NM, Denver, CO, and Tacoma, WA about how to authentically support and engage youth at every level of community-building.
Preventing Suicide Among American Indian Youth
This podcast explores the partnership between Southern Plains Tribal Health Board and Hope Squad, a suicide prevention initiative in which students learn how to help and support one another and get help when they need it.
In this podcast discussion, representatives from Making Connections explore opportunities for leveraging veterans’ experience and skills to enable connection and healing, as well as ways to inform and activate whole communities to support veterans, military members, and their families.
Heal, Grow, Thrive: The Forward Promise Podcast
The Heal, Grow, Thrive podcast is produced and hosted by Forward Promise. Our mission is simple: boys and young men of color thriving! In this podcast, we’ll talk with direct service practitioners, young people, researchers, and leaders in philanthropy to offer a deeper understanding of both the issues facing boys and young men of color and quality solutions for their healing, growing, and thriving. Learn more at forwardpromise.org.
The Hogg Foundation's Into The Fold podcast series is of the ways the Foundation moves from simply talking about grantmaking to influencing dialogue and learning about mental health and well-being. The series captures the human implications of mental health and the factors that influence it, bringing you conversations with mental health experts, consumers, advocates, practitioners, researchers and community leaders from across Texas and beyond.
The Othering and Belonging Institute's Who Belongs?
Launched in Fall 2018 as the Institute's official podcast, Who Belongs? demonstrates its commitment to public dialogue. The question of who belongs in our societies, whether local, national, or global, is one of the central drivers that underpin how people are othered, or how the conditions of belonging are created. The podcast addresses this foundational question to open pathways to explore a range of policies, movements, scholarship, and narratives that get us closer to the goal of advancing a society where all belong.
It’s easy to see the problems in our world: chronic diseases, gun violence, substance misuse, toxic water... What’s often less obvious are the conditions in our communities that help create these problems, and that ultimately point to smart solutions. Moving Upstream tells the stories of people and communities that are finding surprising and inspiring ways to transform these conditions and prevent the problems from happening in the first place.
The "What's Your Revolution" show with Dr. Charles Corprew, is a show for men and the people who love them where we dialogue about how men can find and embrace the healthiest version of themselves.
This episode of the Hidden Brain podcast looks at what happens when half the population gets the message that needing others is a sign of weakness and that being vulnerable is unmanly.
The loneliness epidemic (featuring Surgeon General Vivek Murthy)
In this episode of the Ezra Klein Show, former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy discusses the epidemic of loneliness in the country.
The Radical Imagination podcast is hosted by PolicyLink Founder-in-Residence Angela Glover Blackwell. It features conversations with thinkers and changemakers from multiple fields who are wielding instruments of influence — academia, activism, media, government — to deliver equity wins at scale.
Beyond Men and Masculinity explores how men see themselves, how they relate to the people they say they care about and how the personal impacts the political.
Sinai Health System brings together non-profits, schools, and young leaders in Chicago’s West Side. As a mentorship program, it focuses on supporting young men and boys of color who are growing up in a challenging environment where far too many men are dying too young.
This program supported by Kankakee Community College in Illinois sets out to create a learning community for student veterans, enabling them to build meaningful connections with one another as well as with specially-trained staff for the support that they need.
Development Without Displacement
Making Connections leaders from New Orleans, Boston, and San Diego discuss strategies for fostering development without displacing current residents.
If you want to talk health, you have to talk social connection
A string of suicides in a San Diego neighborhood spurred the community to take action. The United Women of East Africa Support Team (UWEAST) and its partners created a safe space where young men, many of them the children of immigrants and refugees, can be themselves, connect with peers, and get the support they need to live healthy lives.
Understanding Men’s Mental Health and its Importance
This video features the work of Resilience Grows Here, a Making Connections veteran’s mental health initiative that builds an environment to support healthy relationships between veterans and families, while building resilience in men and boys.
The Mask You Live In follows boys and young men as they struggle to stay true to themselves while negotiating America's limited definition of masculinity. Pressured by the media, their peer groups, and even the adults in their lives, our protagonists confront messages encouraging them to disconnect from their emotions, devalue authentic friendships, objectify women, and resolve conflicts through violence. These gender stereotypes interconnect with race, class, and circumstance, creating a maze of identity issues boys and young men must navigate to become "real" men. Experts in neuroscience, psychology, sociology, sports, education, and media also weigh in, offering empirical evidence of the "boy crisis" and tactics to combat it. The Mask You Live In ultimately illustrates how we, as a society, can raise a healthier generation of boys and young men.
Headstrong: Mental Health and Sports
From NBC Sports Regional Networks, "HeadStrong: Mental Health and Sports', is a short film which tells the story of four elite athletes who have faced mental health challenges.
Voices of Male Youth Video Series
From the Partnership for Male Youth, "Voices of Male Youth" is a series of unfettered and unscripted conversations among male youth, exploring the beliefs and feelings that they grapple with in today's society.
The power of vulnerability (TED Talk)
Brené Brown studies human connection -- our ability to empathize, belong, love. In a poignant, funny talk, she shares a deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand humanity.
KVIBE: Mobilizing young men in the Kalihi Valley community through biking
To help Kalihi Valley’s men and boys heal and thrive, Kōkua Kalihi Valley Comprehensive Family Services—a federally qualified health center—and its partners incorporate the community’s rich cultural traditions into leadership training and multi-generational mentoring at the Kalihi Valley Instructional Bike Exchange (KVIBE).
Hope Squad: Making Connections: Suicide Prevention For American Indian Youth
The Making Connections site in Oklahoma City launched the “Hope Squad” to prevent suicide among American Indian youth. Hope Squad is a national, school-based suicide prevention program that trains students to identify warning signs of suicide in their peers, reach out to them, and encourage them to seek help.
Making Connections - Movember's work in mental health in the United States
This video provides an overview of the Making Connections initiative and its approach. It features interviews with staff members and participants from the Making Connections sites in Honolulu, Hawaii; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and Canton, Connecticut
Albuquerque: MC: ID How we’re staying connected
In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Making Connections International District (also known as MC:ID) and its partners have found new ways with young men of color to connect during the COVID-19 pandemic so they can continue to be agents of positive change in their community.
Making Connections New Orleans
Making Connections New Orleans (MCNOLA) organizes events and programs, including a film academy, Photo Voice project, and an open mic series, that bring together and build connection among African American men and boys in the city’s St. Roch neighborhood.
