The Quell Foundation

The Quell Foundation strives to reduce the number of suicides, overdoses and the incarceration of people with mental health illness. We work to accomplish this by encouraging people to share their stories, increasing access to mental health services, providing a pipeline of future mental health care professionals with scholarships, and training first responders to recognize mental health crisis warning signs amongst their own.

To be a nationally acclaimed Mental Health organization known for turning advocacy into statistical

Goal One: Every year, Quell increases its number of scholarships awarded to students studying mental health to address the gap in mental healthcare in the United States.

Goal Two: The Quell Foundation is creating a mental health training program for first responders that provides tools to reduce burnout and de-stigmatizes mental health issues of first responders.

Goal Three: Quell continues to grow its documentary screenings to advance our mission to de-stigmatize mental health issues among vulnerable populations such as adolescents, first responders, and athletes.

The Quell Foundation leadership is made up of three boards designed to support advocacy, awareness, and education. Quell recently added new students to our Junior Board of Directors, made up of current and past scholarship recipients, to grow our student-run programs such as our peer-to-peer mentor program. The Executive Advisory Board and Board of Directors continues to advise Quell leadership on new and continued strategies to advance our mission in shattering the stigma surrounding mental health illness.

Quell has adapted to external changes such as the COVID-19 pandemic in the last year by implementing programs based on the needs of vulnerable populations such as students, first responders, and frontline professionals. To support students who did not receive an in-person graduation ceremony, The Quell Foundation hosted a virtual Music Festival celebrating the graduating Class of 2020. Kevin Lynch, Quell’s Founder and CEO, explained that “We want Quell’s scholarship recipients, along with all graduates across the country, to know we are proud of them and their accomplishments. We applaud the many years of hard work and commitment made towards advancing their education.” The COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be a huge drain on the frontline worker community, resulting in mental health issues, fatigue, and burnout. To combat this nationwide epidemic, The Quell Foundation is implementing its First Responder Mental Health Training Program to address first responder burnout. The Quell Foundation will implement current and retired first responders to implement training sessions to first responder communities throughout the United States, especially in areas where mental healthcare access is lacking. Coupled with this training, The Quell Foundation will offer free therapy sessions for first responders struggling with symptoms of burnout. Along with high rates of depression, anxiety, and risk for suicide, frontline professionals including doctors, nurses, medical staff, and first responders are experiencing an unparalleled declined in mental health. The Quell Foundation recently released a podcast that allows healthcare workers to discuss the compounding psychological and physical trauma associated with continual exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic. In each episode, mental health professionals engage with our guests to provide advice on how they might practice self-help and coping skills while they continue to work on the front lines of this pandemic.