Mental Health Awareness Month: Why Joy Is Part of our Work 

Phoenix, AZ | May 6, 2026.

Warning: This article discusses adverse childhood experiences, trauma, and mental health. If any of these topics bring up difficult feelings for you or someone you care about, please know that support is available and you don’t have to navigate it alone. 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: Call or text 988 (available 24/7, free and confidential) Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741 

Every young person we serve carries a story that started long before they walked through our doors. 

Many of them have experienced what researchers call Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs: abuse, neglect, household instability, exposure to violence, a parent struggling with addiction or mental illness. These aren’t just difficult memories. The research is clear that the more ACEs a young person accumulates, the deeper the impact on their developing brain, body, and sense of self. 

Nationally, approximately three in four high school students report experiencing at least one adverse childhood experience, and nearly one in five report four or more. An ACE score of four or more is associated with a fourfold increase in the likelihood of depressive symptoms, along with significantly elevated risks for anxiety, bipolar disorder, and other serious mental health conditions. (CDC/MMWR Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 2023) 

These experiences don’t just hurt. Left unaddressed, they can quietly reshape the trajectory of a person’s entire life. 

But here is what gives us hope, every single day: healing is possible. 

Leading trauma researchers like Dr. Bessel van der Kolk have shown that because trauma changes the brain, healing must also change the brain. Through neuroplasticity, the brain’s capacity to form new neural connections, these patterns are not permanent. And to heal, people need to feel safe enough to open their hearts and minds to others and become engaged with new possibilities. 

That is the sentence that shapes everything we do. That is when mentoring comes into play. A mentor holds the space, becomes a partner in safe experiences and a trusted friend. 

We know healing is not only about understanding what happened to our youth. It is about accumulating enough safe spaces and safe experiences that their nervous system can begin to believe that the danger has passed. That they are not stuck. That something different is possible. 

This is why we are so intentional about every dimension of our program, from the serious to the joyful. From Power Ups and Life Skills Labs to Level Launch, our curriculum is built to meet young people where they are and walk with them toward who they are becoming. And then there are the moments that might look like they are just for fun, like when our Philanthropy Manager Nick Jensen shows up dressed as a holiday reindeer, or a pig, or calls a basketball game as the world’s most enthusiastic referee. You also see it in the lengths our program coordinators, like Hunter Delaney go to every time we host a 3.5-day Level Launch, showing up fully, introducing themselves with intention, and doing whatever it takes to make every young person in that room feel seen, welcomed, and safe from the very first moment. Those moments are not extras. They are part of the healing. 

Creativity, play, and joy are central, not optional, to sustainable healing and growth. We believe that. We build for that. 

At New Pathways for Youth, our program is grounded in trauma-informed practice because we know the young people we serve deserve more than good intentions. They deserve a community that understands what they carry, that is trained to walk alongside them, and that creates the conditions in which transformation can take root.