Sponsors (10)
The bill directs targeted outreach, school-based supports, research, and modest funding to improve culturally competent mental-health awareness and planning for Hispanic/Latino youth, but it relies heavily on studies and limited authorizations, leaving privacy, implementation, and broader system-capacity challenges unresolved without additional investment or safeguards.
Hispanic and Latino youth and their families will receive culturally and linguistically tailored mental-health information and outreach, improving awareness of symptoms and where to get help.
Schools, students, and school staff will get youth mental-health first aid training and support for on-site screenings/consultations, increasing early identification and referral to treatment.
Disaggregated data and study-driven recommendations will enable better-targeted suicide prevention and improvements to crisis response (including 9-8-8, mobile crisis teams, and crisis centers) for youth in acute mental-health crises.
Several provisions authorize only studies or findings (including two $1 million studies and other study-only efforts), so affected youth are unlikely to see immediate new services or increased provider availability.
The new authorizations increase federal spending (about $25 million for the outreach campaign plus $2 million for studies) without guaranteed follow-on funding for implementing recommendations or scaling services.
Collecting and disaggregating sensitive individual- and provider-level data (e.g., sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, granular demographic/provider details) raises privacy risks if protections are not rigorous.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Authorizes culturally tailored national outreach and funds studies on Hispanic/Latino youth mental health, crisis-care awareness (9-8-8), and workforce capacity, with reporting requirements.
Official title: To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for a national awareness and outreach campaign to improve mental health among the Hispanic and Latino youth population.
Introduced November 20, 2025 by Andrea Salinas · Last progress November 20, 2025
Creates a federal program to study, design, and run a culturally and linguistically competent national mental health awareness and outreach campaign for Hispanic and Latino youth, their parents/caregivers, and school personnel; requires studies on prevalence, crisis-care awareness/use (including 9-8-8 and mobile crisis teams), and on expanding the Hispanic/Latino mental health workforce. It authorizes targeted grant funding: $5 million per year for outreach (FY2026–2030) and $1 million each in FY2026 for two required studies.