In schools across Texas, educators are being asked to support learning while also responding to rising levels of anxiety, trauma, and emotional distress among students. But what if schools weren’t just responding to these challenges, but designing new systems to meet them? In conversation with Beth Hines, principal of Arp Elementary School in East Texas, we explore how educators can become architects of change — building environments where social-emotional well-being is part of the foundation of learning.

• Op Ed: Safe and supportive schools for every Texas student
• COVID-19 and Our Schools
• Children of Change: Supporting Youth Mental Health in an Uncertain World

This episode closes out the Policy arc of our season, an arc focused on how systems change happens, and how mental health policy is shaped not just by moments of urgency, but by sustained leadership. Today’s conversation looks at what it takes to avoid ‘reform whiplash’ — the cycle where systems lurch forward during crisis, only to stall or regress once public attention shifts.

Austin City Council Member Vanessa Fuentes, who represents District 2, has been deeply involved in shaping policies related to housing stability, public safety, and community well-being — areas where mental health intersects with nearly every decision. She gives her perspective on what it means to govern after a crisis — and how to turn short-term responses into long-term, people-centered systems.

• Policy: Telling Your Story
  
• Policy: What's in it For Me?

In a special bonus segment, Hogg Foundation policy fellow Maddie Garza, along with returning guest Ayaan Moledina of Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT), discuss the Lived Experience Storytelling Primer, a toolkit designed to encourage people with lived experience to engage in advocacy while using a trauma-informed lens to take care of themselves and their stories.

• Lived Experience Storytelling: Primer for Advocacy
• Policy: What's In it For Me?

• Rising Voices: Telling Your Story

• Three Things to Know About Meeting with Policymakers

This episode is the second of the Policy arc of our season, an arc focused on how systems change happens, and how mental health policy is shaped not just by moments of urgency, but by sustained leadership. Today’s conversation looks at how lived experience becomes a catalyst for advocacy. We’ll explore how young people — and really, anyone — can use their personal story to shape systems, influence policy, and make their communities stronger.

Our guests are Aurora Harris and Kasey Corpus of Young Invincibles, a national organization that amplifies young voices to influence policy on health, higher education, and economic opportunity. Through their deep understanding of the power of storytelling, they help young people turn experience into impact.

In a special bonus segment, Hogg Foundation policy fellow Maddie Garza, along with returning guest Ayaan Moledina of Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT), discuss the Lived Experience Storytelling Primer, a toolkit designed to encourage people with lived experience to engage in advocacy while using a trauma-informed lens to take care of themselves and their stories.

• Lived Experience Storytelling: Primer for Advocacy
• Policy: What's In it For Me?

• Rising Voices: Telling Your Story

• Three Things to Know About Meeting with Policymakers

When most people hear the word "policy", they think of lawmakers, bills, or political debates — not necessarily something that affects their day-to-day life. But policy is everywhere. It shapes the jobs we can get, the healthcare we can afford, and the communities we call home. And for young people, understanding and influencing policy isn’t just about civic engagement — it’s about shaping the future they’ll inherit.

Our guests for today are Cameron Samuels, co-founder and executive director of Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, (SEAT), an organization dedicated to increasing youth visibility in policymaking, and Ayaan Moledina, SEAT's federal policy director. These two leaders share their insights on how to help young Texans turn awareness into action, and frustration into advocacy.

• Children of Change: Supporting Youth Mental Health in an Uncertain World

• Public Policy for Building a Resilient Future

• Some More Good News in Public Policy

• Some Good News in Public Policy

In rural communities, distance shapes everything - e.g. distance to the nearest hospital; distance to a licensed counselor; or distance to broadband access. When it comes to mental health care, those distances can become barriers.But what if distance didn’t mean disconnection? What if partnerships could stretch across counties and communities — aligning resources so that rural Texans don’t have to navigate care alone?”

Recently, the Hogg Foundation launched its Strengthening Mental Health in Rural and Rural Border Texas Communities initiative designed to strengthen access to care in rural Texas communities. Two of the grantee sites were co-funded in partnership with the Amarillo Area Foundation and the Bivens Foundation — organizations deeply rooted in the Texas Panhandle. Joining us for a conversation about this initiative and what it means for the rural Panhandle are Lara Escobar of the Amarillo Area Foundation and Kathryn Wiegand of the Bivens Foundation, along with Hogg Foundation senior program officers Rick Ybarra and Tammy Heinz.

• Hogg Funding Opportunities:

  • Libraries Supporting Community Mental Health

  • Arts and Humanities Research Grants for Early Career Faculty

  • Moore Fellowship for Doctoral Research

  • Strengthening the Mental Health of Rural and Rural Border Communities

• Grassroots Mental Health Innovations That Work

• Hogg Foundation Well-being in Rural Communities initiative

When someone leaves a state hospital and returns to their community, recovery doesn’t pause — it becomes more complicated. Housing, connection, medication, transportation, stigma, isolation — the real work of healing often begins outside the hospital walls. In this episode, we explore the question: What if discharge isn’t an endpoint — but a handoff? What if care doesn’t end at the hospital door, but expands into a community network designed to sustain recovery? Colleen Gallion of NAMI Central Texas and Stacy Mendelson of Friends of Austin State Hospital discuss how their organizations' partnership is building a bridge between inpatient care and community life.

• Austin State Hospital: The First Step in Building a Continuum of Care
• Dialogues on Mental Health Records
• From Struggle to Strength: Exploring Journeys to Recovery
• Designing for Mental Health

For generations, churches have been more than places of worship. They’ve been gathering spaces, support systems, sources of strength in moments of uncertainty and crisis. In African American communities especially, faith institutions have long been trusted partners in health and healing, often filling gaps where systems fall short.

Today's episode explores what becomes possible when that trust is paired with intentional partnership across faith, community, and mental health systems. Our guest is Pastor Rev. Dr. Daryl Horton of Mount Zion Baptist Church in East Austin, Texas.

Related Links:

• The Caregivers Perspective: Coping with the Loss of Mental Health and Faith

• Reflections from Grantees of the African American Faith-Based Initiative