Pulitzer Center Reporting Raises Awareness About Mental Health

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Mental health awareness was commemorated in May in the United States with initiatives aimed at increasing public understanding of mental illness, reducing stigma, and facilitating connection. The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) writes that Mental Health Awareness Month “... provides a chance to stand with your community and show that no one struggles alone.”

But at a time when mental health is challenged by increasingly volatile economic, environmental, political, and technological realities, how do we keep these conversations going? How do we maintain and strengthen the understanding and connection needed to support our individual and collective mental well-being?

Pulitzer Center student Reporting Fellow Jennifer Wybieracki’s story “How Two Teens in Niagara Falls Are Confronting Pollution and a Mental Health Crisis,” for Inside Climate News, engages directly with this question by both presenting the mental health challenges community members in Niagara Falls are facing as a result of decades of environmental harm, and also highlighting the people and institutions organizing to take action.

Join us on Thursday, June 11, 2026, at 6:30pm EDT for a free, virtual conversation between Wybieracki and three community members profiled in her story about how pollution affects mental health in youth and historically impacted communities. The panel will bring a perspective of journalism, environmental law, advocacy, and lived experience to explore how storytelling can support advocacy, engagement, and change. Register for the webinar here.

Wybieracki’s project is one of many that the Pulitzer Center has supported over the past 20 years to amplify stories of how communities are taking action to support mental well-being. The 2023 podcast Conversations with Sydney, from grantees Micah and Sydney Fink, modeled how vulnerable dialogue between a parent and child can illuminate effective ways for parents, teens, schools, and communities to respond to the ongoing crises of teen mental health and suicide.

The 2025 project Addiction Care in Native American Communities, from grantee Elyse Wild for Native News Online, explored how Native American tribes are leaning on cultural practices and traditional values to reduce deadly overdoses and heal their communities. StoryReach Midwest Fellow Andy Steiner’s project How Change in Washington Impacts Addiction Treatment in Minnesota, for MinnPost, examines how medically assisted addiction treatment programs in Minnesota continue to serve communities while preparing to navigate the impacts of anticipated cuts to Medicaid in 2027. As part of his StoryReach Fellowship, Steiner and the MinnPost team also developed an audience engagement plan to extend the reach and engagement with their reporting. Youth were connected to mental health reporting workshops this spring, and there will be in-person and virtual discussions with communities statewide over the next few months.

AAAAOpportunity for Civil Society Microgrants

But do these stories reflect the mental health conversations that need to happen where you live, or among the institutions and communities you are a part of? How might your community engage storytelling to extend the goals of Mental Health Awareness Month, and ultimately increase understanding and connection in your communities?

Our 2026 U.S. Civil Society Microgrants aim to support civil society organizations and groups in the United States with between $2,000 and $4,000 for projects that explore this question through engagement with Pulitzer Center-supported reporting. We are actively seeking projects that focus on increasing awareness and engagement related to mental well-being. We are also hoping to fund projects exploring climate and labor, fisheries and fishing communities, and information and artificial intelligence.

Click here to learn more about this opportunity and apply. Applications close this Monday, June 8, 2026.

Thank you for exploring and sharing the mental well-being stories we support, and for furthering the conversation about mental health in your communities. 

In its introduction to Mental Health Awareness Month, NAMI writes: “Every story shared turns silence into connection, and connection into healing.”  

With gratitude, 

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Fareed Mostoufi
Associate Director of K-12 Education

This message appeared in the June 5, 2026, edition of the Pulitzer Center's weekly newsletter. Subscribe today.