“Men’s Mental Health Month calls us to notice, talk, and act for the men in our lives who carry burdens we often cannot see or hear,” says Rawle Andrews Jr., Executive Director of the American Psychiatric Association Foundation. “When we normalize seeking help and support emotional wellbeing, we strengthen families, schools, workplaces, and communities around the world.”
It’s a charge that Athletes for Hope has taken seriously — and one that, over the past year, has moved from principle to practice.
June is Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month, a moment that invites a question that still doesn’t get asked enough: what does it actually look like when men ask for help? For male athletes, the barriers run deep. The culture of sport — built on toughness and the expectation that pain is something you play through — has long made it harder to reach out. AFH Wellbeing, Athletes for Hope’s athlete-led mental health program, has spent the past year working to change that. Not with broad statements, but with rooms full of real people having real conversations.
Locker Room Reimagined
Last fall, Athletes for Hope partnered with Project Blackbird and the APA Foundation to host the Locker Room Reimagined: Men’s Mental Health & Wellness Forum in Washington, D.C. Moderated by Fox 5 DC anchor Stephen Graddick, the panel featured former NFL player Marcus Smith II, NBA veterans Jerome “Junkyard Dog” Williams, Howard University basketball player Ose Okojie, and AFH Chief Wellbeing Officer Dr. Mena Mirhom.
Andrews opened the evening by grounding the conversation in what it means to redefine strength for men today. What followed was candid: athletes talking openly about pressure, pain, and the moments that pushed them to finally ask for help. The message was clear — vulnerability isn’t the opposite of toughness. It’s part of it.
Out of The Dark
In December 2025, with the support of the APA Foundation, AFH and WETA’s Well Beings initiative brought Out of The Dark: Jack Beer to audiences. The short film, directed by Redglass Pictures, follows Jack Beer, a Georgetown soccer player whose depression and anxiety forced him off the field — until he decided to open up. It’s the kind of story that does what statistics can’t: it puts a face on the experience of a male athlete sitting with something he hasn’t told anyone yet, and shows him a way through.
Taking the Work to the Field of Psychiatry
In May 2026, Dr. Mirhom took the stage at the APA Annual Meeting — the largest psychiatry gathering in the world — to present on how working with athletes creates a ripple effect that reaches far beyond the locker room. He then led a panel on the future of academic sports psychiatry alongside Dr. Roy Collins of Stanford and Dr. David McDuff of the University of Maryland, presenting AFH Wellbeing, CHAMPS, and the partnership with APAF’s Where We Play platform. Physicians left the room asking how they could get involved.
Building Bridges Across the Field
The APA Foundation’s Notice. Talk. Act. framework — notice the signs of a potential mental health concern, talk openly without judgement, and act by connecting people to the appropriate resources. AFH promoted the resource across its athlete community and distributed it to teachers across more than 2,000 schools through CHAMPS. Dr. Mirhom also dedicated an episode of the Hope Heroes podcast to the framework, joined by sports clinicians Dr. Alicia Naser and Dr. Jorge Aguilar to discuss how athletes, coaches, and teammates can recognize distress, start a conversation, and take action.
In October 2025, Dr. Mirhom represented AFH at the Public Psychiatry Symposium at Mount Sinai alongside Andrews and Dr. Lena Green of HOPE Center Harlem — a signal of the broader coalition forming around this work.
The partnership also showed up where AFH’s community gathers. The APA Foundation supported both Play for Good and Putt for Passion, AFH’s annual events that fund the programs at the heart of this mission. Play for Good benefits CHAMPS; Putt for Passion — which raised more than $150,000 this past May — directly supports AFH Wellbeing. It’s one thing to co-sign a mission. It’s another to put resources behind the programs doing the daily work.
AFH and the APA Foundation also partnered on content throughout the year, including science-backed mental wellness guidance developed with Dr. Mirhom covering consistency, early support, rest, recovery, and purpose.
Why This Moment Matters
The APA Foundation partnership gives AFH Wellbeing something valuable: clinical credibility and reach into the psychiatric community that athlete-facing nonprofits rarely have. AFH gives APAF something in return — athletes willing to use their platforms to model what it actually looks like to be honest about struggling.
That exchange is what Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month is really about: a sustained effort to change what men believe is possible. At Athletes for Hope, the work continues well past June.
For more mental health resources, visit mentalhealthcareworks.org.
If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, call or text 988.