MAYVILLE, NY, Sept. 01, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rural Minds®, the national nonprofit dedicated to rural mental health, today announced a new nationwide initiative to provide tools and resources to respond to the mental health crisis afflicting teenagers in rural America.
The national launch of its Rural Youth Mental Wellness Program will be anchored by a new set of free, digital self-help sessions, called “Single Session Interventions (SSIs)” adapted in partnership with Northwestern University’s Lab for Scalable Mental Health and delivered through a digital platform built by Koko. The rollout coincides with National Suicide Prevention Month.
The rural-specific SSIs are brief, self-guided digital modules that teach teens ways of understanding and coping with depression, anxiety, and stress. They can be completed online, anonymously, in about 10 minutes, at no cost and with no clinician needed, making them especially valuable for rural communities where mental health providers are scarce. The tools are accessible from the Rural Youth Mental Wellness Program webpage with the September national rollout.
"A young person’s ZIP code should never determine whether they can access meaningful mental health support where and when they need it,” said Dr. Jessica Schleider of Northwestern University's Lab for Scalable Mental Health. “Our lab is thrilled to partner with Rural Minds as they champion evidence-based, anonymous, freely available support tools designed to overcome barriers to help-seeking faced by rural youth across the country."
Rural teens face mental health challenges distinct from their urban peers, including isolation, stigma, and limited access to care. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the suicide rate for rural youth ages 15 to 19 is 74% higher than for their urban counterparts. Most existing mental health resources were not designed with rural young people in mind, a gap the SSIs and the broader program were built to close.
"Rural youth face a mental health crisis that's been largely invisible to the rest of the country,” said Jeff Winton, founder and chairman of Rural Minds. “The Rural Youth Mental Wellness Program was built with rural teens, not just for them, and this launch is a major step toward no young person being left without support simply because of their ZIP code.
The program launches nationally following a successful pilot in Pennsylvania and New York with support from Boehringer Ingelheim; the national rollout is sponsored by the Sompo Foundation. It was built from the direct input of a teen and young adult program advisory committee, whose members shared their own experiences and rural perspectives to help shape the program content and delivery from the ground up.
"We are proud to support Rural Minds' work to advance mental wellness in rural America," said Faith Frank, Executive Director of the Sompo Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Sompo. "Both Sompo and the Sompo Foundation are proud to stand behind this program that will focus on young people in rural communities."
"Supporting the pilot of this program in Pennsylvania and New York showed us what becomes possible when rural young people help design the resources meant to serve them," said Vanessa Pott Semedo, Head of Global Patient Engagement, Boehringer Ingelheim International. "We are proud to see the Rural Youth Mental Wellness Program reach teens nationwide."
The program's online hub also offers practical resources, social support tips, and culturally relevant content organized by topic, including anxiety, depression, substance use, suicide prevention, and LGBTQ+ youth, along with a toolkit to equip parents, teachers, and community members with program content to support the young people in their lives.
The combination of rural lived experience, youth-centered design, and academic partnership behind the program, anchored by the SSIs, is not found in existing national programs. The program will continue to evolve based on ongoing feedback, including a survey accessible from the program webpage on the Rural Minds website at www.RuralMinds.org.
For more information or to schedule an interview, contact Andrea Greif at andrea@ruralminds.org or 914.772.3027.
ABOUT RURAL MINDS
Rural Minds is the only national 501(c)(3) nonprofit focused on advocating for rural mental health equity, promoting mental wellness, and providing educational content to confront rural mental health challenges and the stigma that surrounds mental illness for the 46 million people living and working in rural America. To learn more, visit www.ruralminds.org.
ABOUT THE LAB FOR SCALABLE MENTAL HEALTH
The Lab for Scalable Mental Health is a research facility at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, directed by Dr. Jessica Schleider. It creates and shares fast, free, and easy-to-reach digital mental health tools, mainly single-session interventions, to help young people who cannot get traditional therapy. To learn more, visit www.schleiderlab.org.
ABOUT KOKO
Koko is a free, anonymous nonprofit digital mental health service. It helps young people online by providing evidence-based emotional support, peer connections, and short coping courses through chat apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, and Discord, as well as partnerships with social media platforms. To learn more, visit www.kokocares.org.
ABOUT SOMPO FOUNDATION
The Sompo Foundation, established in 2023, is the philanthropic arm of Sompo International Holdings Ltd. (Sompo), a global provider of property, casualty, and specialty insurance and reinsurance. The Foundation enables Sompo to give back on a global scale through strategic investments in social causes, coordinated charitable efforts, and targeted support for key issues, creating meaningful and lasting impact in the communities where we live and work. To learn more, visit www.sompo.com/about-us/sompofoundation.
ABOUT BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM
Boehringer Ingelheim is a biopharmaceutical company active in both human and animal health. As one of the industry’s top investors in research and development, the company focuses on developing innovative therapies that can improve and extend lives in areas of high unmet medical need. Independent since its foundation in 1885, Boehringer takes a long-term perspective, embedding sustainability along the entire value chain. To learn more, visit www.boehringer-ingelheim.com/us.
Rural Minds® is a registered trademark of Rural Minds, Inc.
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Andrea Greif Rural Minds 914.772.3027 andrea@ruralminds.org