Empowering students with a lifeline for a lifetime.

Our Why

Every student deserves good mental health.

Fifty percent of mental illness occurs before age 14, and suicide is the second-leading cause of death for young people. So many families have been touched by mental illness, including many of ours.

While it would be easy to feel overwhelmed by these statistics, Erika’s Lighthouse uses them as a rallying cry for change and an end to our youth mental health crisis.

In fact, 93% of students believe we should be talking about mental health — and with our classroom education, empowerment clubs, family engagement, and policy and staff training, we’re making it easier to open up these life-saving conversations and ensure students have the knowledge and support to achieve mental well-being.

Erika's Lighthouse is the largest, and most impactful, school mental health program in the US.

We only count students that are directly impacted by our curriculum. Each school year we reset our counters to zero, checking in with every school partner to ensure our programs are making meaningful impacts in their communities. Since 2004, Erika’s Lighthouse has partnered with more than 6,200 schools and directly impacted more than 4.46M students.

Our curriculum is scalable and effective, empowering school communities everywhere.

Powered by the Erika’s Lighthouse Data Center, we know our effective, evidence-informed programs are transforming school cultures around mental health.
We truly are empowering students with a lifeline for a lifetime by teaching them the knowledge and skills to manage their mental health.

After using Erika’s Lighthouse curriculum, students reported: