Lady Gaga Announces Expansion of Teen Mental Health Program

On Wednesday, Lady Gaga announced that her Born This Way Foundation and the National Council for Behavioral Health will expand the peer-to-peer mental health program, teen Mental Health First Aid (tMHFA), to 20 additional high schools across the U.S. starting in the fall.

At one of her Las Vegas residency shows, Gaga brought 16 students from eight schools onstage who had just completed their first tMHFA pilot.

“With teen Mental Health First Aid, we like to say, it’s okay to not be okay,” Gaga said onstage. “Sometimes when life gives you a million reasons to not want to stay, you need just one person that looks at you, listens to you, helps you get help and validates how you feel. Together, Born This Way and the National Council have put this program in eight schools and soon it will be in 20 more. I know for certain that I’m not stopping here. I want the teen Mental Health First Aid program in every school in this country.”

According to a representative from tMHFA, the program is “an in-person training for high school students in grades 10 to 12 to learn about mental illnesses, including how to identify and respond to a developing mental health or substance use problem among their peers.”

Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation was co-founded in 2011 by the singer and her mother, Cynthia Germanotta.

via:: Rolling Stone