On May 19 the House unanimously passed H.R. 7432, a bipartisan initiative also known as the Fostering the Future Act, to strengthen and modernize the John H. Chafee Foster Care Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood.
The aim of the bill is to:
- Strengthen alignment with federal housing programs such as the Foster Youth to Independence (FYI) housing voucher
- Expand education and training vouchers (ETVs) for short-term workforce training programs, costs associated with earning a high school diploma, apprenticeships, and remedial education
- Increase the ETV cap from $5,000 to $12,000 while maintaining current funding levels and providing more robust educational support for foster youth
- Expand access to legal services and prioritize supportive networks and permanency for foster youth
- Connect parenting foster youth with evidence-based maternal infant early childhood home visiting services
For more information, the House Committee on Ways and Means published a brief summary.
House Committee Unanimously Votes to Reauthorize the School-Based Health Center Grant Program
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce recently held a markup of H.R.8209, unanimously advancing the bipartisan legislation. The bill would reauthorize the school-based health centers (SBHC) grant program.
Students and their families rely on SBHCs to meet their needs for a range of age-appropriate health care services. SBHCs primarily operate in underserved communities and play a crucial role in providing primary care services to school-aged children, including dental screenings and mental health services.
There are more than 2,500 school-based health centers nationwide, serving more than 6.3 million K-12 students.
Legislation Advances Aiming to Prevent Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in TANF
The House Committee on Ways and Means recently discussed H.R. 8872, also known as the Preventing Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in TANF Act. The bill would require state governments to report improper payment data for TANF to the Department of Health and Human Services.
The bill exited the committee following a 23-19 vote, sparking significant concerns about its impact on the accessibility of TANF funds. For instance, the bill would establish a federal income threshold double the federal poverty line as well as a three-year time limit for states to spend TANF funds. The bill would also limit funds used for a rainy-day fund to no more than 15% of a state’s annual grant award.
The committee also published a brief summary of the bill.
HHS Works to Address Single Audit Noncompliance
HHS launched the Audit Enforcement and Risk Oversight (AERO) initiative to improve oversight of states and grant recipients that repeatedly fail to meet federal Single Audit requirements.
Utilizing artificial intelligence, AERO aims to:
- Improve consistency, transparency, and documentation
- Increase visibility into unresolved audit findings
- Enhance coordination across HHS
- Set clearer expectations for timely corrective action and enforcement
HHS will work collaboratively with states and grantees to resolve audit findings and implement effective controls to safeguard federally funded programs. For those unwilling to address findings, HHS will seek all remedies permitted under the law.
Department of Education Creates New Workforce Pell Grant Program
The Department of Education announced a final rule to implement the new Workforce Pell Grant program created through the recent reconciliation bill, H.R. 1.
Beginning July 1, students will have access to Pell Grants for enrollment in high-quality, short-term educational programs that prepare them for high-skill, high-wage, and in-demand jobs. The program aims to help more Americans enter the workforce quickly, minimizing student debt and strengthening the nation’s talent pipeline.
Institutions of higher education currently award Federal Pell Grants to students with financial need to help them earn undergraduate credentials. Workforce Pell bridges the gap between education and employment by allowing Pell Grants for workforce training programs that prepare individuals for immediate employment in as little as 8 weeks. Workforce Pell also requires colleges to limit their tuition and fees based on the earnings of program graduates, ensuring that programs continue to demonstrate value over time.
Learn more in this fact sheet from the Department of Education.
Sector Updates from the Judiciary
Federal Court Allows Executive Order Restricting Mail-In Ballots
The District Court for the District of Columbia declined to halt an executive order that would restrict voting by mail. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols determined it was too early to issue the order because it had not been implemented yet.
The executive order requires the Department of Homeland Security to work with the Social Security Administration to create lists of adult U.S. citizens in each state, then send those lists to state election officials. It also calls for the U.S. Postal Service to compile lists of eligible voters and deliver mail-in ballots only to people on those lists.
The order would prohibit mail-in voting for anyone not on the pre-approved list of citizens compiled by the Department of Homeland Security. However, the court maintained the manner of implementation, rather than the text itself, is necessary to determine its legality.
The order will remain in place for the time being, although additional lawsuits have been filed to challenge its legality.
FEMA Grants for Migrant Services Wrongfully Terminated, Federal Court Rules
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington recently determined the Trump administration wrongfully terminated a $4 million grant for Washington that supported services for new migrants. The grants were allocated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide shelter and other services for migrants recently released from the Department of Homeland Security.
The grant was canceled in February 2025, prompting Washington to file a lawsuit seeking to reinstate funding. U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Rothstein agreed, determining the government’s actions violated the Administrative Procedures Act.
Subscribe to the Policy and Advocacy Radar to receive our biweekly policy roundup, which includes commentary on issues in Social Current’s federal policy agenda, opportunities to take action, and curated news and opportunities.
How can the social sector move beyond scarcity thinking and build systems that truly support community well-being?
That question is at the center of the newest episode of the National Council for Mental Wellbeing’s State of Mental Wellbeing podcast, featuring Social Current President and CEO Jody Levison-Johnson in a conversation about visionary leadership, systems transformation, and the growing Five & Rising initiative.
In the episode, “New Approaches to Nonprofits: Visionary Leadership and the Five & Rising Initiative,” Levison-Johnson discusses the urgent need to rethink how the social sector is funded, valued, and positioned within society. The conversation explores how outdated perceptions of nonprofit organizations often limit innovation and long-term impact, despite the sector’s critical role in strengthening communities and advancing well-being.
Listeners can expect insights on:
- How the Five & Rising initiative aims to shift public narratives about the social sector
- Why leaders should stay bold, trust their instincts, and resist shrinking in constrained environments
- What boards, funders, and communities can do to support a more sustainable and effective sector
The episode is part of the broader The State of Mental Wellbeing podcast series, which explores the evolving landscape of mental well-being and the leaders working to shape healthier communities and systems.
Listeners can watch additional conversations and episodes on YouTube and learn more about the movement behind the discussion through Five & Rising.
Mental health care is undergoing rapid technological change. Artificial intelligence is increasingly being integrated into clinical settings, crisis response systems, digital therapy platforms, and consumer wellness applications, with the potential to expand access to care and support more individualized mental health interventions. The question is no longer whether AI will influence mental health care, but whether those of us committed to health equity will help shape how these technologies are developed, implemented, and governed.
For the social sector, this presents both opportunity and responsibility. AI has the potential to expand access to care, reduce barriers, and support more personalized interventions, particularly in communities that have historically faced limited access to mental health services. At the same time, these technologies raise serious concerns related to privacy, bias, equity, clinical safety, and the erosion of human connection in care.
The Promise: Emerging AI Applications
Three categories of AI application are generating the most interest and evidence in mental health care.
- Predictive Modeling and Early Detection: Machine learning algorithms trained on electronic health records, behavioral data, and language patterns are showing real capacity to identify individuals at elevated risk for conditions like depression, psychosis, or suicidal ideation before those conditions become acute. Earlier identification may create opportunities for more timely intervention and support before individuals reach a point of crisis or require more intensive interventions.
- Personalized Treatment Planning: AI tools can synthesize large volumes of patient data to help clinicians quickly tailor interventions based on the patient’s history, preferences, and biological markers. Achieving this level of precision manually can be difficult, particularly at scale.
- AI-Conversation Agents (CAs): Perhaps the most visible category of AI application is virtual therapists or chatbots. A growing body of evidence has demonstrated CA effectiveness across both clinical and subclinical populations. Benefits include increased user engagement, strong therapeutic alliance, lower costs, and improved accessibility.
The Pitfalls: Risks in AI Integration
The potential benefits are significant, but so are the risks, particularly for organizations across the social sector.
- Privacy and data security are common concerns among mental health professionals. Mental health data is among the most sensitive information a person can share, and AI systems require large datasets to function well. The infrastructure for storing, transmitting, and using that data must meet a high standard of protection, and organizations have the ethical obligation to be transparent about how data is used.
- Bias in training data and algorithms also presents a particularly insidious problem. AI systems are trained on historical data, which often reflects the inequities already present in health care systems. When diagnostic models are primarily trained on data from white, affluent, or English-speaking populations, they may be less accurate for people from other demographic groups. Things like culturally specific expressions of distress and differential access to care can introduce bias that can deepen existing disparities.
- Many AI models lack interpretability and consistent regulation, functioning as black boxes, producing outputs that clinicians cannot easily trace or explain. This limits clinician and patient trust and creates barriers to adoption in formal health care settings. The regulatory landscape has not kept pace with the technology, leaving gaps in accepted standards for validation, liability, and oversight.
- Patient suitability must be considered. Not everyone is an appropriate candidate for AI-supported care, and in some cases these technologies may worsen mental health symptoms. Research has documented instances where AI chatbot use exacerbated psychiatric symptoms, particularly among individuals prone to psychological dependency and attachment formation. Unsupervised use has been linked to cases of parasocial relationships, delusional thinking, emotional dysregulation, and social withdrawal. These are strong arguments for human oversight and the necessity for validated criteria to determine who should and should not be directed toward AI-based tools.
The Potential: Strategies Moving Forward
Given the risks and the reality that AI will continue to impact mental health care, how do we shape this emerging technology as a force for good?
- Transparency: This is one of the most important levers available to mitigate risk. Making AI features, training data sources, algorithmic logic, and back-end processing as visible as possible to both clinicians and patients helps build the trust. Organizations deploying these tools should insist on explainability as a baseline requirement when working with vendors. Before adopting a tool, organizations should know how data is stored, kept private, for how long, and how data is purged.
- Human Oversight: It should be structurally embedded throughout the process. AI predictive models, diagnostic tools, and CAs should be positioned as supplements to human care, not substitutes. Protocols for escalation, crisis response, and clinical review should be established before these tools are implemented. This is particularly important for populations that may be more vulnerable to harm from unsupervised AI interaction.
- Equity-Centered Design: Organizations should incorporate equity-focused criteria into procurement to help mitigate algorithmic bias. Social sector organizations are well-positioned to ask hard questions of vendors, including: What data was this tool trained on? How does it perform across racial, linguistic, and socioeconomic groups? What mechanisms exist to audit and correct for bias over time?
The evidence supporting AI integration in mental health care is growing, but significant gaps exist. Long-term studies on the effects of AI-therapist interventions are limited, and questions remain about whether benefits diminish over time. Research that prioritizes equity, interpretability, and clinical relevance is needed to address these gaps. Further development of field-specific regulatory frameworks and standards is also crucial, as voluntary commitments from developers are not enough to protect clients.
Conclusion
AI-driven approaches carry genuine potential to expand access and improve outcomes in mental health treatment, particularly for communities that have been underserved by conventional care. Across the sector, responsibly integrating AI in mental health care will require collaboration between technology specialists, clinicians, policymakers, and the communities most affected by these tools. Now is the time to shape this quickly emerging technology to improve mental health outcomes across the country and beyond.
Further Reading
Want to learn more about the intersection of AI and the social sector? Find dozens of studies and articles in our AI & Technology Resource Collection in the Knowledge and Insights Center.
Top Resources
- Artificial intelligence as a predictive tool for mental health status: Insights from a systematic review and meta-analysis | PLOS One (2025)
- Artificial intelligence for mental health: A narrative review of applications, challenges, and future directions in digital health | Digital Health (2025)
- Applications of artificial intelligence in mental health: a systematic literature review. | Discover Artificial Intelligence (2025)
- Exploring the Ethical Challenges of Conversational AI in Mental Health Care: Scoping Review | JMIR (2025)
- A cautionary tale for AI and Machine Learning in Psychiatry | Nature (2026)
Social Current Solutions
At Social Current, we provide the tools and insights you need to lead with purpose and drive real change. Check out these opportunities to strengthen your organization.
COA Accreditation
The 2026 COA Accreditation standards update includes the addition of standards for responsible and ethical AI use. The standards provide a framework to assist organizations in effectively integrating AI governance into existing risk, quality, and ethics practices; maintaining human oversight and accountability; and prioritizing the well-being of people and communities in every deployment.
About the Knowledge and Insights Center
Social Current’s Knowledge and Insights Center equips social sector professionals with the research and resources they need to stay current on trends, implement best practices, and improve their organizations. It specializes in vetting information sources and systematizing information so that it is easy to understand. Gain access to the Knowledge and Insights Center by becoming a Social Current Impact Partner or purchasing access.
Social Current is excited to introduce the newest cohort of our Executive Leadership Institute, our yearlong leadership development program held in partnership with Loyola University Chicago’s Quinlan School of Business.
This dynamic group of leaders is helping to shape the future of the social sector. They represent a diverse cross-section of human and social services organizations, all united by a shared commitment to helping all people thrive.
The participants will learn from experts, receive guidance from mentors, and apply their learning to projects that strengthen their organizations. We’re excited to support this cohort on this next step in their leadership journey.
Learn more about the Executive Leadership Institute online. To stay in the loop about our 2027-2028 institute, share your email.
Announcing the 2026-2027 Executive Leadership Institute Cohort
Joshua Andreyo
Director of Finance
Auberle
Seth Baker
Vice President of People and Culture
Brightpoint
Kira Bellolio
Vice President of Family and Parenting Services
Congreso de Latinos Unidos
Tiffany M. Crumer
Assistant Vice President
MBCH Children and Family Ministries
Gayle Curry
Executive Director Planning & Development
Hands of Healing Residential Treatment Center
Michelle Riella
Senior Director, Human Resources
Wayfinder Family Services
Junior Dillion
President & CEO
Volunteers of America Upstate New York
Kathleen Estrada
Vice President of Family and Financial Success
John Boner Neighborhood Centers
Hailey Juliano
Chief Program Officer
Holy Family Institute
Chuck Phillips
Assistant Vice President
MBCH Children and Family Ministries
Deslynne Roberts
Executive Director
National Youth Advocate Program
Tina Ruiz
Vice President of Quality Improvement, Impact & Analysis
UCAN
Tara Treglowne
Chief Operating Officer
Lutheran Social Services of WI and Upper MI, Inc.
A new Children’s Behavioral Health Collective (the CBH Collective), of which Social Current is a founding member, was formed to leverage the extensive national expertise of its partners to foster resilience, health, and wellbeing for children, youth, and families with behavioral health needs. The CBH Collective does this through transforming child-serving systems, advancing collaboration across sectors, and developing solutions grounded in data, evidence, and lived experience.
Children, youth, and families need access to behavioral health services in their homes and communities. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately one in five children in the U.S. experiences a mental health condition each year. While there is much known about best practices that support families to thrive, these practices are not fully implemented, and families continue to face significant challenges accessing needed care. Cross-system partnerships are necessary to fully implement effective, evidence-informed approaches and improve access, coordination, and outcomes across services.
While behavioral health needs are of major concern for the general population, prevalence and intensity are significantly higher for children who are involved with the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. Children, youth, and families may come to the attention of these deep end systems due to gaps in behavioral health care. In addition, children and families may also experience the trauma of separation from home and community with involvement in child welfare and juvenile justice, further exacerbating their needs. The CBH Collective shares:
- A commitment to addressing the behavioral health needs of children and youth to prevent future engagement in more punitive systems
- A recognition that its member organizations are undertaking a set of policy and programmatic activities to respond to this imperative
- The need for an ongoing forum for coordinating activities and collaborating to achieve the greatest possible collective impact
As a collective that includes representatives from a broad array of systems, we are uniquely positioned to strengthen the national continuum of behavioral health services for children, youth, and families by collaborating to develop actionable goals related to governance and service delivery models, policymaking, and program implementation.
The founding members of the CBH Collective include the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Casey Family Programs, Center for Adoption Support and Education (CASE), Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS), Chapin Hall, Child Welfare League of America (CWLA), Council of Juvenile Justice Administrators (CJJA), Family Run Executive Director Leadership Association (FREDLA), Foster Care Alumni of America, Innovations Institute at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work, National Association of Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD), Social Current, and the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA).
Providing team-based training can significantly enhance both individual performance and overall group effectiveness. It helps team members develop new skills, stay current with industry practices, and build confidence in their roles. Training also encourages better communication and collaboration, as participants gain a shared understanding of goals, tools, and strategies.
To maximize the experience:
- Build Your Team: Identify the staff and roles that would benefit from the training. Consider a group of cross-functional leaders, emerging leaders, and new supervisors.
- Clarify Goals: Outline the individual and collective goals you’d like the team to address through the training. As the team moves through the training, they can crystallize priorities, applications, and opportunities for collaboration.
- Schedule a Post-Training Debrief: As your team begins the training, make sure to identify a deadline for completion and a specific day and time for an initial debrief conversation. In this session, the team will outline what it wants to accomplish in the weeks and months ahead.
Let Social Current facilitate your debrief. When you enroll two or more staff in one of our on-demand virtual leadership courses, we will provide one hour of free consultation. We can support your goals and planning with a fresh perspective, expertise in leadership development, and knowledge of sector trends.
On-Demand Virtual Training Through Social Current
Social Current’s on-demand virtual trainings can accommodate differing schedules. These asynchronous trainings feature eight hours of content that can be completed anytime within a year of enrollment. Each tackles a timely topic with research-backed strategies.
Burning Bright: The Resilience Advantage
This course guides you through a practical, scientific, and reflective approach to regularly recharging and consistently bringing your best self—at home, at work, and your community.
This course introduces core concepts from design thinking to help leaders use real business issues to frame problems, design experiments (projects), make decisions, and learn from mistakes. You’ll explore what innovation is and is not, what can impact innovation, and how to mitigate innovation challenges.
Managing Virtual and Hybrid Teams
Working remotely has its advantages; it can also be challenging. This course is designed to help you develop a new mindset, skillset, and toolkit to handle more complexity and ambiguity associated with navigating the virtual landscape with greater effectiveness.
These trainings were developed by The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL)®, a top-ranked, global, nonprofit provider of leadership development.
Log in to the Social Current learning community with your hub/COA Accreditation portal credentials or create a new account to get started.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services recently warned of the overuse of psychiatric medications, recommending a shift in the standard of care toward prevention, transparency, and a more holistic approach to mental health.
Through education, outreach, program and policy development, and research-to-practice initiatives, HHS agencies seek to evaluate prescribing patterns for psychiatric medications, assess their benefits and potential risks, and promote nonmedication treatments as well as scalable, evidence-based approaches to improving mental health.
HHS also issued a statement emphasizing the importance of including meaningful access to evidence-based, nonpharmacological interventions in treatment planning for mental health conditions. The letter states that, when clinically indicated, treatment should include a careful assessment of the patient’s symptoms, a medication review for efficacy, and, when appropriate, deprescribing.
Social Current’s policy team is monitoring how these efforts may influence access to medications and mental health services, particularly for individuals who rely on medication as part of their treatment plan. As implementation evolves, the team will continue tracking potential impacts on access to care, provider decision-making, and the availability of comprehensive behavioral health supports.
ACF Updates on Licensing, Reporting, and Child Care Reform
National Models for Foster Family and Kinship Home Licensing Standards
The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) recently issued guidance updating the National Model for Foster Family Home Licensing Standards in an effort to reduce unnecessary administrative burden and clarify how the standards apply to non-kinship foster families as title IV-E agencies adopt kin-specific licensing approaches. ACF encourages Title IV-E agencies to streamline foster family home licensing, adopt kin-specific standards, and remove barriers that may delay safe placements for children.
ACF also updated Kin-Specific Foster Family Home Licensing Standards and issued recommendations for licensing agency practices to improve timeliness, responsiveness, and support for prospective foster families.
An additional clarifying letter states that the recommendations are not new requirements for Title IV-E agencies. Rather, they provide a framework to help states modernize and strengthen their licensing practices, improving flexibility, consistency, and the recruitment, approval, and retention of foster families.
Adoption and Foster Care Analysis Reporting System Dashboard Updated with 2025 Data
The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) released preliminary FY 2025 foster care and adoption data with functional updates to the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) Dashboard. The updates include new displays that allow users to see a child’s prior relationship in foster care before adoption or guardianship in addition to marital status of the adoptive or guardian parent.
The dashboard aims to strengthen the transparency and accessibility of child welfare data to better support state agencies, tribal governments, and advocates in using the information for decision-making. The enhancements provide the child welfare community greater insight into the pathways out of foster care for children who exit to adoption or guardianship.
However, ACF urged caution in interpreting year-over-year comparisons as increases in counts from prior years are partly attributable to the expansion of the reporting population rather than changes in child welfare trends.
Guidance for Child Welfare Directors on the Next Annual Progress and Services Report
ACF recently released guidance limiting Annual Progress and Services Reports (APSR) to five pages or fewer, with a focus on clearly communicating key priorities, progress, and challenges. This guidance aims to reduce administrative burden, eliminate duplication, and improve the APSR’s usefulness as a practical tool for stakeholders.
The guidance arrives shortly after additional guidance for:
- State Agencies, Territories, and Insular Areas
- Indian Tribes, Indian Tribal Organizations and Indian Tribal Consortia
States and Tribes are encouraged to prioritize clarity, brevity, and impact in their submissions.
Child Care Reform Package Addresses Affordability, Accessibility, and Parental Choice
The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) recently announced a child care reform package to lower costs, expand access, and better serve families. The reforms include:
- Encouragement for states to transfer more TANF funds to the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) to expand child care access
- Clarification that faith-based providers and family, friend, and neighbor caregivers can play a larger role in federally supported child care
- Rescission of Restoring Flexibility in the Child Care and Development Fund, a rule that required some direct services to be provided through grants or contracts, providers to be paid prospectively and based on enrollment, and family co-payments to be capped at 7% of income
- Proposed removal of future wage and benefit requirements that were deemed to exceed the Head Start Act’s authority, comments will be accepted until June 11
The initiatives aim to cut red tape, restore state flexibility, protect taxpayer dollars, and open the door to more child care options tailored to the needs and preferences of American families.
Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee Issues Policy Recommendations to Address Gaps in Care
The recently reformulated Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) recommended four federal actions to address documented and correctable gaps in the medical care, safety, and policy recognition of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), particularly those with the highest and most persistent support needs.
Recommendations included:
- Clarifying and reinforcing EPSDT obligations and issuing HRSA clinical guidance for children with autism
- Adopting a federal research and policy designation for profound autism
- Implementing coordinated safety measures to address autism-related wandering and elopement
- Issuing an interagency implementation directive to enact the above recommendations
Certain committee members, however, expressed concern that they did not have sufficient time to seek feedback from their agencies.
Department of Education Issues Guidance for States in Utilizing IDEA Funds
The Department of Education recently released guidance to help states leverage Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) funds for supporting expectant parents of infants with disabilities in accessing information and tools to prepare for their child’s arrival as well as to secure needed supports and services after birth. The guidance accompanies a $144 million investment to expand interventions that support students with disabilities. The funds will be awarded this year to state and local agencies with IDEA programs.
Grant competitions were also announced for:
- The Ready to Learn Program and the Promise Neighborhoods Program: Evidence-based literacy, high-impact tutoring, and programs that leverage families and communities to meet students’ needs
- The Competitive Grants for State Assessments Program: Enhances the quality of assessment instruments and systems to promote student academic achievement
- The Career Pathways Exploration and Teacher Quality Partnership Programs: Integrates career exploration into statewide career pathways and workforce readiness programs
- The Comprehensive Centers Program: Helps State and Local Educational Agencies navigate federal education law and leverage evidence-based practices to improve student outcomes
Senate Discusses Mental Health and Substance Use Treatment Across the Continuum of Care
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions recently held a field hearing in Louisiana to discuss the importance of mental health and the vitality of access to care that meets individuals’ unique needs.
Witnesses emphasized the need for sustainable access to integrated care, advocating for continuity in federal investments toward SAMHSA and Medicare, flexibility in service delivery, and secure pathways for under- and uninsured populations to access care.
Subscribe to the Policy and Advocacy Radar to receive our biweekly policy roundup, which includes commentary on issues in Social Current’s federal policy agenda, opportunities to take action, and curated news and opportunities.
Co-authored By: Karen Johnson and Kelly Martin
Since the U.S. first recognized May as Mental Health Awareness Month in 1949, it has become more acceptable to talk about stress, well-being, and burnout at work.
We also know that talking about mental health in the workplace is not the same as addressing it.
In the social sector, the need to prioritize workplace mental health is especially clear. We are a field grounded in care. We support people through crisis, instability, and some of the hardest moments in their lives. The work is meaningful, and it is also complex, emotionally demanding, and can lead to secondary traumatic stress and high turnover. Too often, the environments where this work happens are not designed to support the people doing it.
We’ve built a sector that asks employees to hold individuals and communities through crisis, without building the conditions to hold the employees themselves.
Many organizations recognize this. They are investing in wellness initiatives and encouraging dialogue about well-being and resilience. These are important steps, but they are not the deeper organizational culture shifts that are needed for sustainable impact. Workplace mental health is strongly influenced by components of organizational culture such as values and mindsets, norms and processes related to how work gets done, expectations and boundaries, leadership behavior, feelings of connection and community, and whether people feel safe to speak up without fear of judgment or consequence.
Real change doesn’t come from a single training, offering free gym memberships, or implementing a new policy. It comes from a commitment to sustained culture change efforts, which begins with reflection and assessment, mindset shifts, learning, and skill building. From there, the work continues through practicing new behaviors, action planning for ongoing change, and establishing the expectations that will shape and sustain the transformation.
This is the work we focus on every day at Social Current. In fact, one of our core impact areas is Organizational Health and Workforce Support. Using healing-centered and neuroscience-informed approaches, we partner with organizations to strengthen staff well-being, build healthier cultures, and support employees’ mental health to sustain demanding work over time. As the research and decades of experience tell us, when organizations change their culture, lasting behavior change is possible.
That work often begins with an honest assessment. Not just of survey data, but of the deeper insights behind the numbers. What are staff experiencing? Where are the gaps between what we say we value and what people feel day to day?
From there, organizations can strategically engage in the right kind of training, technical assistance, and consultation that begins to shift organizational mindsets, build knowledge and skills, and offer behavioral solutions. In our experience, understanding how stress affects the brain and behavior at work is a critical foundation for building a culture of well-being and resilience. Organizations can then turn that understanding into action through intentional changes in everyday practices and workplace norms.
And we know this shift is possible.
In Philadelphia, Social Current is currently partnering with the Philadelphia Department of Human Services (DHS), and to-date has trained more than 1,600 staff in workforce well-being and resilience in collaboration with a team of trainers and consultants. Follow-up surveys were administered to training attendees four months after the training, and the data showed that the majority of respondents were applying key concepts and practices from the training to their day-to-day work and relationships.
People reported:
- Being more intentional about self-care and protecting their energy
- Setting clearer boundaries and feeling more comfortable saying no without guilt
- Pausing before reacting in stressful moments and responding more thoughtfully instead of escalating tension
- Approaching difficult conversations with more clarity and less defensiveness
- Showing more empathy for colleagues and the families they serve
- Using the shared language established during the training to better navigate stress, conflict, and collaboration together
These shifts may seem small, but over time, they fundamentally change how work feels. They create environments where people can do demanding, meaningful work without being worn down.
To be clear, changing behavior is hard, and these examples noted by the Philadelphia DHS employees are worth celebrating. They are a reminder that culture is not alone defined by mission statements, values on a website, or policies. It’s reflected in how we support staff to carry out the mission, aligning action with our values, and how we support each other when the work is challenging. When organizations focus on building a culture that prioritizes employee well-being, the changes are visible, sustainable, and impact staff’s daily experience.
Mental Health Awareness Month gives us an opportunity to reflect on an important question: Are we building workplaces that reflect the compassion we say we value?
If we want a sector that can truly support others, we have to start by supporting the people doing the work.
Karen Johnson
Senior Director, Change in Mind
Social Current
Kelly Martin
Director of Practice Excellence
Social Current
Throughout 2025, Social Current continued its efforts to activate the power of the social sector and effect broader systemic change in support of an equitable society where all people can thrive. In collaboration with our network and partners, we focused on strengthening our influence, our voices, and our impact.
We are grateful to have your support as we continue to strengthen and amplify the work of the social sector to facilitate impact and systemic change through our core solutions and impact areas.
Our 2025 Year in Review features:
- A note from Social Current President and CEO Jody Levison-Johnson
- Engagement stats for our partnerships and service offerings: COA Accreditation, Impact Partnerships, Consulting, and Knowledge and Insights Center
- Milestones related to our five core integrated impact areas
- The launch of the Five & Rising initiative
- Highlights of SPARK 2025
Effective leadership at all levels of an organization has never been more critical than it is today. The human and social services sector is resource strained in many ways but the need to sustain staff morale and productivity is still essential.
A team-based approach to leadership development is one of the most effective ways to build capability across an organization. Instead of independently focusing on skill building, this approach develops leadership collectively, which accelerates collaboration, culture change, and improved performance.
Some of the benefits of team-based leadership development include:
- Shared Language & Alignment: Learning together reduces miscommunication, establishes new norms, improves decision-making, and improves strategy.
- Stronger Trust & Psychological Safety: Colleagues can build relationships, test new approaches, and exchange feedback in supportive environments.
- Sustained Behavior Change through Shared Accountability: Peer-driven reinforcement increases the likelihood that new behaviors become long-term habits.
- Systems Thinking: Individuals move from siloed priorities to organization-wide goals.
- Rapid Application: With a group of staff, it’s easier to troubleshoot barriers and creatively implement solutions.
- Development of Collective Leadership Capacity: Equal development opportunities prepare organizations for succession planning and enhance adaptability during change.
Organizations should consider team-based leadership for various groups, including cross-functional leaders, emerging leaders, and new supervisors.
On-Demand Virtual Training and Consultation Through Social Current
Enrolling staff in on-demand virtual training through Social Current allows you to gain the benefits of team-based leadership development and accommodate differing schedules. These asynchronous trainings feature eight hours of content that can be completed anytime within a year of enrollment. Each tackles a timely topic with research-backed strategies.
To further support teams of two or more that enroll in these courses, Social Current will provide one hour of free consultation. This facilitation will assist your team in debriefing from the training—crystalizing lessons learned, prioritizing applications and next steps, and ensuring accountability.
Burning Bright: The Resilience Advantage
This course guides you through a practical, scientific, and reflective approach to regularly recharging and consistently bringing your best self—at home, at work, and your community.
This course introduces core concepts from design thinking to help leaders use real business issues to frame problems, design experiments (projects), make decisions, and learn from mistakes. You’ll explore what innovation is and is not, what can impact innovation, and how to mitigate innovation challenges.
Managing Virtual and Hybrid Teams
Working remotely has its advantages; it can also be challenging. This course is designed to help you develop a new mindset, skillset, and toolkit to handle more complexity and ambiguity associated with navigating the virtual landscape with greater effectiveness.
These trainings were developed by The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL)®, a top-ranked, global, nonprofit provider of leadership development.
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