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New Phone App Targets Youth and Young Adults mental health issues
As National Mental Health Awareness Month (May) approaches, Indiana continues to face a mental health crisis among teens and young adults.
—18% of Indiana students considered attempting suicide in 2019-20 (Regional Mental Health and Suicide Trends in Indiana).
—37% of high school students in 2020 reported feeling “sad or hopeless” (Regional Mental Health and Suicide Trends in Indiana).
—During 2017-2019, almost one in ten young adults 18-25 reported serious mental illness and 13% reported serious thoughts of suicide (Behavioral Health Barometer Indiana).
—In a 2022 study, 29% of young adults 18-25 reported depression (On Edge: Understanding And Preventing Young Adults’ Mental Health Challenges,” Harvard School of Education).
—Suicide is the second-highest cause of death for Hoosier teens, but the third-highest nationwide (Indiana Center for Prevention of Youth Abuse and Suicide).
One key to addressing this crisis is making help for mental health issues more readily accessible to Hoosier teens and young adults. A new phone app, available through Apple and Google app stores, is designed to connect users to mental health resources instantly via their phones. The user-friendly app, called Ankit’s Hope, not only directs users to mental health organizations, agencies, help lines, and emergency services county-by-county, but also enables them to screen and monitor their own mental health using a simple self-screening tool.
The Ankit’s Hope app is a service of The Ankit Foundation Corp., a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing awareness and supporting positive changes in mental health care. It is named after Ankit Toppo, who lost his life in 2022 at age 20 due to depression. The Ankit Foundation was created in 2022 by his mother, Pushpa Toppo, and his sister, Rachel Toppo, in an effort to improve mental health care, services, resources and legal systems to help other teenagers, young adults, and their families.
For more information, contact:
Pushpa Toppo, OTR, MBCT cert. A&YMHFA, USA
Founder, President & CEO
Ankit Foundation Corp
ankitfoundationcorp@gmail.com
For app feedback please email -
Aditi Anand
cc-Pushpa Toppo
ankitfoundationcorp@gmail.com
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