Humanaut Steps Up to Provide Creative Tools for Young People’s Mental Health

Chattanooga-based non-profit Be the Change Youth Initiative and mental health provider The Middle Path have forged a relationship with a powerful ally - creative agency Humanaut.

The agency stepped up in Spring of 2024 to provide their best work for the groups’ shared mission. Both groups focus on mental health awareness and resources for adolescents and teens and Humanaut was eager to amplify their efforts.

The award-winning agency created six two-three minute videos that powerfully share BTCYI’s and The Middle Path’s shared devotion to Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) in order to help young people find peace, self-awareness, increased communication skills and how to live a life with less stress.

The intent of the entire campaign is to inform teenagers about DBT as they navigate the mental changes and challenges as they transition from adolescence and adulthood. The series also informs the audience where help can be found with The Middle Path.

In one of the videos, BTCYI founder and president Sydney Guerrette recalls spending a great deal of time travelling across the country to talk to countless young people and discovered in the long process that many “lack the skill to regulate their emotions which adversely effects so many aspects of their lives.” She goes on to note that her organisation “partnered with friends at The Middle Path and Humanaut to create this series so that we can help youth better understand and manage their emotions.”

According to Humanaut’s Tommy Wilson, executive producer, “So many mental health advocacy videos are so stale and medical that they don't resonate with the audience that they're trying to help. Our strategy was to convey otherwise dull and medical messaging around mental health in an energetic and captivating edit style for teenagers to easily digest. We're excited to partner with BTCYI and The Middle Path on such an urgent issue.”