Youth Unmute: Creative Conversations on Mental Health
The Door proudly co-hosted Youth Unmute: Creative Conversations on Mental Health at The New School’s Center for Global Mental Health. Alongside the Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health, University Settlement, Dorill Initiative, and The Defensive Line, we brought together young people, including Door members and staff, advocates, and city leaders to ask one pressing question: How can we better support youth mental health?
The urgency behind this event is clear. Youth mental health has reached crisis levels nationwide. According to a CDC study, 44% of high school students experience persistent sadness or hopelessness, and nearly 20% seriously consider suicide. The numbers are even higher among LGBTQIA+ youth, with nearly half reporting suicidal thoughts. Here in New York City, youth of color face disproportionately high behavioral health needs and low access to care. Behind these statistics are real young people, many of whom walk through The Door every day seeking support.
Why This Conversation Matters
The event opened with Eva Wong, Executive Director at the Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health, who stressed that while free resources like NYC Teenspace exist, they only work if youth feel safe enough to use them. This is where The Door’s approach comes in: meeting young people where they are, without stigma, judgment, and barriers to care.
During the panel, Expanding the Way We Think About Youth & Mental Health, our very own Lexie Korn, Assistant Director of Community Mental Health, shared a metaphor that perfectly sums up our trauma-informed approach:
“Imagine a young person deep down in a cave. Most services stay at the top, throw down a rope, and say, ‘Climb up.’ But the young person says, ‘I don’t know how to climb. I don’t know how to use this.’ At The Door, we go down into the cave. We sit with them in that darkness, and together, we find the way out. That’s what true community looks like.”
The audience responded with powerful reflections. This wasn’t just a panel for providers; it was a space designed for young people to lead the conversation and define what they need from the systems meant to support them.
Beyond the Panel: Building the Future of Mental Health Care
This event was also a chance to showcase how The Door is not just responding to this crisis but reshaping the future of youth mental health care. With the support of the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation, we launched the Cohen Center for Mental Health and a new hybrid Master of Social Work (MSW) program in partnership with NYU Silver School of Social Work. This program allows 14 Door staff to earn their MSW degrees at a reduced cost while continuing to serve our community, creating a pipeline of culturally competent mental health professionals who understand the realities our young people face.
Our work is grounded in the belief that youth mental health isn’t just about treating problems; it’s about reframing the conversation around resilience, strength, and the potential every young person carries.
The event closed with a powerful message: The youth mental health crisis is not just a statistic, it’s an emergency, and organizations like The Door are on the frontlines. As our CEO, Kelsey Louie, has said, if this crisis were a natural disaster, “the levees would be on the brink of collapsing.” We cannot afford to wait.
Through events like Youth Unmute, partnerships, and through innovative programs like our MSW initiative, The Door is building a brighter and stronger future where no young person has to climb out of the cave alone.