Kellin Foundation partnerships bring hope to Greensboro

The mental health statistics for North Carolina teens are sobering.

Depression, sexual violence, substance abuse, and self-harm are on the rise. Twenty-five percent of girls and one in six boys suffer some form of sexual abuse before graduating high school. Teen dating violence has nearly doubled since 2019, and 30% of high school girls claim they have seriously contemplated suicide — twice the rate from a decade ago, according to North Carolina’s most recent Youth Risk Behavior Study since the pandemic.

Meanwhile, the percentage of high school students who agreed with a definition of clinical depression has climbed to 43%, the same study found.

While every community in the country is impacted by mental health concerns to varying degrees, Guilford County is grappling with the additional stress components of housing shortages and food insecurities, says Dr. Kelly Graves, president and CEO of the Kellin Foundation, a Greensboro non-profit organization that offers a range of behavioral health services.

The situation has crisis centers working at capacity across the county. But dealing with the growing mental-health crises can’t fall entirely on emergency services. The situation requires a holistic, multi-generational approach based on outreach, education, prevention and early intervention, according to Graves.

“Our vision is to try to go upstream and catch issues before they start, or just as they're starting so we can address them early on,” Graves says. “We're trying to do prevent issues from happening by raising awareness and implementing early prevention programming to get people the supports they need as quickly as possible, so they don't go on to develop other maladaptive coping skills like substance use.”

For the Kellin Foundation, a nationally recognized center of excellence, early prevention outreach starts in the public schools. With the help of a 2024 Cycle I grant from the Kontoor Brands Foundation, the Kellin Foundation works with 9^th-12^th graders in local high schools to engage students on a range of issues, from developing support networks and healthy coping skills for stress and anxiety, to identifying early warning signs and risk factors as part of suicide prevention.

“The Kontoor Brands Foundation is dedicated to supporting the critical work of local non-profits that are addressing the issues of housing security, food security, and access to education in the greater Greensboro area, so the Kellin Foundation is a natural fit for us to partner with,” says Mame Annan-Brown, Kontoor Brands’ EVP of Global Communications and Public Affairs and President of the Kontoor Brands Foundation. “We have deep admiration for the Kellin Foundation’s commitment and dedication to empowering young people to address such an important need in our community, and we’re honored to support those efforts.”

Graves says the school outreach program, called ‘Teens Gotta Talk!,’ is having a positive impact. The younger generation, she says, has less stigma around mental health issues and is more open to talking openly about the situation. However, she adds, “they’re also coming in with much more significant needs.”

“We need to stop separating physical health and mental health, because it's all health,” Graves stresses. “We can’t just address mental health like mental illness; we need to work on building our mental wealth.”

The work of promoting mental wellness means strengthening resilience among children, families, adults, and communities, while also increasing accessibility to an array of multi-disciplinary services. That’s why the Kellin Foundation is teaming up with a growing network of Greensboro non-profits to launch the Hope Hub, a unique one-stop shop for mental health services. Located inside the former Lindley Park Baptist Church, which closed in 2023 and gifted its property to the Kellin Foundation, the Hope Hub brings together a dozen nonprofits under one roof, offering a variety of integrated prevention, treatment and healing services for people of all ages and income levels.

“Mental health is the only thing that we don't check in on regularly,” Graves says. “We get annual physicals, we get eye exams, we get dental cleanings, and we get our car’s oil changed on regular intervals. But we never think about getting a mental health check. It's just not part of our society. And I think that is such a missed opportunity for people to build their wellness.”

Graves says the Hope Hub can play a role in changing that by making preventive care and mental wellness work more mainstream and normalized in the greater Greensboro community.

“We are building a place where people feel welcomed, connected, and where they find hope,” Graves said.