Mental Health Friendly Cities

Join the “MHFC” Movement!

The time is now to build mental health friendly cities. The COVID-19 pandemic has stressed social service delivery systems and highlighted points of systemic fragility from which no one is excluded. Globally, we can expect a level of unparalleled need at a time of systemic depletion and precarity. Furthermore, the UN has added mental health outcomes to its Sustainable Development Goals, signaling the connectedness of mental health with broader international objectives. Mental health is central to human functioning and an essential building block for sustainable social and economic development. Now, more than ever, we need cooperation and partnership that builds bridges across sectors and disciplines to solve the mental health challenge.

That’s why citiesRISE is excited to introduce the Mental Health Friendly Cities (MHFC) initiative. citiesRISE has worked extensively over the past three years with young people, social entrepreneurs, NGOs, private sector partners, research experts, and system leaders to co-create the concept of Mental Health Friendly Cities to drive and measure local changes in mental health and well-being. Our MHFC approach applies the best of scientific evidence while also tapping into community lived experiences to create a systems-wide framework. By its nature, our model is flexible, agile, and able to respond quickly to changing events.

Evidence has shown that investment in young people is the key to the success of any mental health solution. However, current approaches to mental health typically lack an integrated understanding of the pressures and challenges that young people face. They struggle to address disparities, and often fail to reach marginalized populations. Young people hold important insights into what they need, the value of technology, and new strategies for mental health. MHFC harnesses the creativity and connectivity of young people and strengthens their capacity to collaborate across sectors and with senior leaders to drive significant systems change. 

What is the MHFC framework?

The MHFC framework serves as a roadmap that communities can use to achieve a certain level of transformation and success in improving mental health for its constituents, at which point their city can be deemed “mental health friendly.” 

This framework will enable all community stakeholders to maintain consistent processes as they identify, prioritize, and implement interventions across multiple sectors. It also provides an opportunity to drive intersectoral collaboration to achieve system level change that has been designed and is being powered by young people. 

By implementing the MHFC framework, any city can ultimately gain a vibrant, new youth-led workforce for mental health that is integrated into existing public health, criminal justice, and social programs, and it will be armed with new models for reaching young people—particularly those from underserved communities. 

The MHFC framework is currently being pioneered by five cities: Nairobi, Chennai, Bogota, Seattle, and Sacramento. These cities are seeing significant positive change in their communities, including new activated youth networks, significant policy changes, new interventions in schools and colleges, increased awareness and de-stigmatization, engaged civic leadership, new linkages to care, and new connectedness and learning collaboratives between cities. We have found that, by activating new connections amongst entrepreneurs, youth, and leaders from the private, public, and philanthropic sectors, we can support systemic, intersectional change that improves mental health and well-being for diverse communities. 

We challenge all city leaders, investors, technology & data companies, thought partners, and global changemakers to be a part of the solution to one of the largest global challenges of our time. 

How we RISE