When I launched my campaign to serve as Colorado’s next Governor, I committed to make our campaign a fight for our kids’ future. That commitment reflects the pain I have witnessed from parents like Chelsea Congdon, who lost her son Miles Brundige to fentanyl poisoning. When I was growing up, the biggest danger to kids was the risk of automobile accidents. But, today, auto accidents are a distant third after gun violence (often suicide) and overdose or poisoning deaths like Miles’. We must do better–and make the memory of Miles and others’ a blessing and a call to action.
My commitment to putting our kids’ future at the center of my campaign is why I made this ad, Future, to highlight my dedication to addressing the youth mental health crisis and to honor all families who have lost kids and are taking on this fight. The ad features Chelsea and other parents honoring their kids’ memories and telling their stories. In Miles’ case, he died from fentanyl poisoning after buying what he thought was a prescription painkiller over Snapchat.
I am committed to supporting every child in Colorado to build a successful future. As Governor, I will prioritize three strategies:
- Getting kids off their phones and away from social media, including signing legislation holding social media companies accountable for the damages they cause kids and getting kids outside so they can learn about what our public spaces have to offer, from health benefits to career opportunities.
- Ensuring every kid has at least one mentor, by launching HOPE, our statewide mentorship program, and enabling every school to have adequate mental health services.
- Creating opportunity and hope for the future with a start in community service, through ColoradoCorps, along with investments in career and technical training and improved education.
First, we need to get kids off their phones and protect them from the harms from social media.
As demonstrated by Miles’ experience, and so many other kids, social media platforms are fueling a youth mental health crisis and offer an easy way for kids to access dangerous drugs. That’s why I am suing Meta and investigating TikTok for irresponsibly managing their platforms. As I say in the ad, our kids deserve better. In addition to litigation, I have pushed for tougher legislation to regulate social media, including a Colorado law that would have required platforms to police the users who sell fentanyl or guns to young people. Unfortunately, it was vetoed. But when I am Governor, I will bring back that bill and sign it into law.
The actions of social media platforms contribute to the youth mental health crisis, with algorithms designed to keep them online for hours and hours per day disengaged from friends and family. That’s why, learning from D51 in Grand Junction, I championed a state law that requires all schools to adopt policies that prevent smart phones from interfering with learning. And we also must be vigilant about our kids’ use of Chromebooks in schools, as too many kids are spending their days on screens and not learning how to relate to others.
Our kids are experiencing a loneliness epidemic, one that threatens their physical and mental health, their ability to learn, and their future. Consider, for example, that an unacceptably low number of Colorado teens believe that they have an adult other than a parent that they can go to with a serious issue and that an alarming number of young people are turning to AI Chatbots for “friendship.” And at a time of rising needs for youth mental health, the Trump Administration has slashed funding for mental health programs, especially those LGBTQ+ youth most at risk.
For parents, the challenges facing our kids’ mental health is a daily reality. As the parents of two kids, I know just how hard it is to ensure that children today feel connected, engaged, and supported. That’s why youth mental health is one of my top priorities–and why I developed a multi-part strategy for how we better support our kids. And that’s why as Attorney General, I developed a number of important responses to this crisis, which I am ready to scale up and advance as our next Governor.
Regulating Social Media and AI companies. As explained above, we must take action to hold social media companies accountable for their failure to protect our kids. That is why I sued Meta as our attorney general and supported S.B. 25-086 to regulate social media companies for failing to protect kids from illegal activities such as drug dealing, illegal sale of firearms, sex trafficking, and sexual exploitation. And that’s why, as governor, I’ll sign that bill into law and pursue critical protections for our kids from AI chatbots that can also cause them serious harm.
Getting Kids Outside. We need Colorado kids to spend less time on their phones. And here in Colorado, we can ensure they do it with their friends in the great outdoors, one of the many things that makes Colorado special. To do this, I will push programs to provide greater outdoor education opportunities for K-12 students, enabling all Coloradan youth to connect with nature, disconnect from their phones, and learn about the career paths available in Colorado’s outdoor recreation and land preservation industries.
Second, we must ensure that every kid has multiple mentors, through launching HOPE, our statewide mentorship program, and enable every school to have adequate mental health professionals and services.
Access to Services. Mental health care is health care. Along the lines of my Healthy Colorado Plan, I am committed to making sure that all Colorado kids, across the economic spectrum and across the state, have access to mental health care. This means training, supporting, and ensuring that our schools have the school-based mental health professionals they need. It also means enabling regular school-based mental health screening for all Colorado kids. We must also develop strategies to promote the expansion of virtual and telemedicine based mental health services (building on programs like iMatter) and make mental health care available for our kids as we do for physical health care.
Culture of Care. In Colorado, we care about one another. As Governor, I will foster a culture where we lean in to take care of one another and our kids are given the tools they need to be an active part of this effort rather than passive participants. This means teaching our children to be comfortable asking for help and training them in what it takes to advocate for their needs. It also means working with educators across the state to continue improving our curriculum that helps kids develop relationship and emotional resilience skills. A core part of this commitment is to reduce the stigma around asking for help and talking about mental health, as too many of us are afraid to admit that trauma and other challenges in our past are affecting our present.
Mentorship. Mentors are an essential part of the emotional support network that all healthy children need (as explained here). To that end, on day one of my administration, I will launch a mentorship campaign–that we are calling HOPE–across the state. This effort will elevate and expand successful existing programs and scale the work across schools, communities and work-based environments, working to ensure that every child has multiple mentors and adults they can talk to. A range of research–and promising programs like Youth Power in the Vail Valley–demonstrate that those kids “least susceptible to suicidal thoughts and bullying were those who reported having strong connections with not just their parents, but also other caring adults.”
Third, we must create opportunity and hope for the future with a start in community service, through ColoradoCorps, along with investments in career and technical training and improved education. That must include keeping them safe from gun violence and gun shootings.
Driving Purpose through ColoradoCorps. We will also engage young people and enhance their sense of purpose and opportunity through a new ColoradoCorps, a service program to unify and amplify existing programs to help young people learn how to serve in critical fields such as teaching, law enforcement, nursing, counseling and firefighting. The program will enable participants to train for lasting careers and earn credentials needed to open up new opportunities. We will also scale up career and technical education as well as “earn and learn” options, making clear to every child that good job opportunities are attainable, whether or not they pursue higher education.
Gun Safety. Finally, reducing access to firearms through reasonable gun safety measures can dramatically reduce firearm-based suicides and is something we must do. Encouraging responsible gun ownership, including encouraging safe gun storage, saves lives. As does the use of Colorado’s red flag law to remove firearms from those who pose a significant risk to themselves or others. As Governor, I will bolster Colorado’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention to reduce firearm deaths, especially among Colorado’s youth.
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Colorado’s work responding to the youth mental health crisis has already begun to show promise, with improvement in both overdoses and teen suicide rates in the last couple of years. Even with the percent of high schoolers experiencing persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness dropping by 14 percent between 2021 and 2023, Colorado currently ranks 15th in Childhood Happiness and 18th in Best States for Children’s Mental Health, meaning we still have considerable room for improvement.
When I think about those parents who have lost their kids and the kids growing up struggling with our nation’s connection crisis, I am motivated to bring a sense of urgency, vigilance, and creativity to address our youth mental health crisis. Colorado is making progress with efforts like Youth Mental Health Corps and the Second Wind Fund. And we have much more work to do–and I will lead that work with those families affected by this crisis at the top of my mind.
As governor, I will work tirelessly to ensure that Colorado is one of the very best states in which to grow up and that we channel the power of our communities towards that goal. Let’s get to work.