With one in five Americans living with a mental illness, one in 12 living with addiction, and deaths from suicide at the highest they have been in two decades, mental health and addiction reform should be critical conversation topics during the election season. Mental Health for US is a nonpartisan initiative focused on educating voters and policymakers on barriers to mental health and addiction treatment and recovery resources, while empowering voters to advocate for mental health policies and improving candidate and policymaker health literacy.
The Kennedy Forum partnered with CURA Strategies to launch Mental Health for US ahead of the 2020 election season in an effort to prioritize mental health and addiction as a national issue, leading to reform and policy talks. CURA Strategies was selected to develop and execute a strategic communications plan for the launch Mental Health for US to:
To achieve these goals, CURA led all stakeholder engagement efforts, including recruitment, messaging coordination and all ongoing communications. Additionally, CURA developed a policy platform laying out the general areas that the mental health community wants addressed, organized in the categories of prevention, access, intervention and recovery. CURA also developed toolkits for stakeholders, voters and policymakers, detailing how to advocate for and promote mental health and addiction policy change.
Other responsibilities for launching and maintaining the initiative included:
Candidate outreach:
Stakeholder engagement:
Social media highlights:
Media coverage: