U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Center for Mental Health Services

Challenge:
To bring about major social change in the way children’s mental health needs are understood and met.

Vanguard responds: 
Vanguard Responds: Since 1994, Vanguard has managed the Caring for Every Child’s Mental Health Campaign, the social marketing arm of a major Federal initiative to radically improve the way children and families’ mental health needs are understood and met. Hundreds of communities in 50 states, territories, and tribal nations and are a part of this effort. Vanguard builds local social marketing capacity through cross-community communication, social marketing skill training, technical assistance, and peer-to-peer resource sharing.

An annual National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day focuses on community achievements and reaches out to partner organizations at the national and local levels. Campaign products, strategies, and training represent
• best practices (audience research, scientific review, end-user testing for cultural/language appropriateness and consumer appeal) and
• state-of-the-art technologies (Web-based training, listservs, electronic publishing), while remembering that
• low-tech/high-touch strategies—for example the persuasive firsthand stories, of and by the children, youth, and families whose lives have been changed for the better—are the most powerful.