Mental health resources across Google
Mental health is a deeply personal and often challenging journey, and an estimated 1 billion people are living with a mental health condition globally. We want you to know that you're not alone. Google is committed to supporting you every step of the way, offering information, resources, and tools to help you navigate your mental wellbeing journey.
Empowering you with information and support
Teams across Google have developed tools and features to support mental wellbeing. From tools to help you relax after a stressful experience to features to help you get support in moments of crisis, we are continuing to look for new ways to support the mental health journey of as many people as possible.
Google Search
In times of crisis, access to accurate information is vital. Google Search can connect everyone to a wealth of high-quality resources.
Crisis hotlines
If someone searches for terms related to suicide, domestic violence or sexual assault, they’ll see prominent links to crisis hotline providers, in dozens of countries and languages. We’ve done this through partnerships with organizations such as ThroughLine and the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
Self-assessments
For people searching for depression, anxiety, and other mental health conditions in certain countries, they can access clinically-validated self-assessments to evaluate the level of symptoms, along with links to additional resources. Individuals are always directed to seek additional guidance from their healthcare providers.
YouTube
As a platform for video sharing and education, features to support mental health and wellbeing are critically important on YouTube. The YouTube Health team is dedicated to making high-quality health information accessible to everyone.
Health content shelves
If you search on YouTube for a topic related to a specific physical or mental health condition, you may notice a shelf with health content in your search results. The health content shelf will include videos related to the health topic that you searched for and may include content from other countries/regions that match your search language. We use the principles developed by experts convened by the National Academy of Medicine, World Health Organization, and Council of Medical Speciality Societies to establish which channels are eligible for the shelf.
Information panels
When you watch a YouTube video on a health-related topic, including mental health, you may notice an information panel providing context on the source underneath the video. This panel is meant to give you more information to help you better understand the sources of health content that you find and watch on YouTube.
Crisis resource panels
If you search for or watch videos on certain sensitive topics like suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, sexual assault and domestic violence, YouTube may provide prominent panels that let viewers connect with support from crisis service partners. If you want to learn more, the crisis resource panel also links you to the partner’s website.
Suicide, self-Harm, and eating disorders policy
YouTube has specific guidelines and policies across mental health topics including suicide, self-harm and eating disorders. Read more about YouTube's age restrictions and content removal policies.
Personal stories shelf
The personal stories shelf lets you connect with content from creators who share their personal and authentic experience with certain mental health conditions, to foster empathy and reduce stigma.
Managing screen time
There are a suite of features on YouTube to help manage your time on YouTube, including bedtime and break reminders, and additional tips and resources for parents of teens.
Supervised experiences on YouTube
We offer age-appropriate ways for kids, pre-teens and teens to explore YouTube. Every family’s relationship with media and technology is different, so we offer options for you to decide what’s best for yours.
Safeguards for teen content recommendations
Working with YouTube’s Youth and Families Advisory Committee, we identified additional safeguards for content recommendations for teens, while still allowing them to explore the topics they love. Working with the Advisory Committee, we identified categories of content that may be innocuous as a single video, but could be problematic if viewed in repetition for some young viewers. Learn more about the categories here.
Fitbit and Pixel wearables
According to WHO, health is defined as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." Enhancing mental well-being involves managing stress, practicing mindfulness, ensuring healthy sleep, and engaging in regular exercise. Health is a holistic concept, and Google’s devices can help you manage your health by promoting routines that support physical and mental well-being while providing insights for actionable steps.
Stress tracking
The cEDA (electrodermal activity) sensor on some Fitbit and Pixel watches powers Fitbit's Body Response feature. This sensor can point to possible stress responses when it picks up on either positive or negative signs of stress activity, and sends you a notification. You can then reflect on how you feel in that moment, and choose to take actions to reduce your stress - like guided breathing or a mindfulness session.
Mindfulness tools
Guided breathing exercises, mindfulness content and mood logging in the Fitbit app allow you to track and manage stress levels in real time.
Sleep insights
Fitbit's advanced sleep tracking features can give you deeper insight into your sleep quality, and recommendations for how to improve it. Improving sleep quality is crucial for mental health.
Fitness tracking in the Fitbit app
Advanced fitness features help you find motivation, track and make progress toward your goals, and know when you should prioritize recovery.
Supporting organizations within our communities
Collaborating with local organizations is the key to reaching people at the right time through people they can trust. These are some of the organizations we’ve worked with to make an impact.
The Child Mind Institute is the leading independent nonprofit in children’s mental health, dedicated to transforming the lives of children and families struggling with mental health and learning disorders. Google.org funded the rollout of mental health training and resources to one million high school students and YouTube partners with Child Mind Institute to support content creation across top mental health topics. A recent video series on self-compassion and grounding exercises with YouTube and Anchor Media received an Anthem Award.
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As part of the first cohort of the Google.org Accelerator: Generative AI, Partnership to End Addiction is working to enhance the reach and quality of its addiction support services for families by using AI to build a training simulator and quality assurance tools.
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Recognizing the unique mental health challenges faced by veterans, Google.org is supporting ReflexAI's development of HomeTeam with a grant and Google.org Fellowship. This AI-powered tool equips veterans with the skills to support each other and encourage those in need to seek professional help.
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Google Public Sector is partnering with the Governor's office and behavioral health state agencies in Illinois to improve access to mental health resources for children. The partnership led to the creation of the BEACON portal that serves as a common entry point for agency staff and caregivers.
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Through the Google.org Ad Grants program, organizations are able to get high-quality, authoritative mental health resources in front of more people. And WHO is bringing mental health guides in more than 25 languages to communities around the globe, reaching more than 14 million people through donated Google Search ads, resulting in 1 million visits to their website to learn more.
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Google.org has provided significant funding and technical support via a Google.org Fellowship to The Trevor Project, the world's largest suicide prevention and mental health organization for LGBTQ+ youth. The collaboration leverages AI to scale crisis services, train crisis counselors, and reach millions of young people worldwide who are struggling.
Learn more
Mental health resources for young people
We give parents the tools they need to to control the content their kids see, and the time they spend online. Family Link app lets you set digital ground rules to help guide children as they learn and explore online. You can also set kids profiles for any age on Google TV for kid-friendly content, or create a supervised account on the main YouTube experience, with three tailored content settings for parents to choose from, digital well-being and privacy protections, parental controls and limited features.
Google.org has also committed $15M to support projects from leading educational voices to build healthy relationships with technology. We’ve partnered with Highlights Magazine to create a special edition that’s full of fun and engaging activities based upon our Be Internet Awesome curriculum. Through quizzes, puzzles and even some craft projects, kids will learn how to be smart, confident and responsible online explorers. There are also free, tailored resources for teachers and parents.
As part of this commitment, we also announced $10 million in new funding for leading youth mental health and education nonprofits: The Rare Impact Fund, DonorsChoose, The Jed Foundation, Child Mind Institute and The Steve Fund — increasing our overall commitment to youth digital wellbeing and online safety to $25 million. With this funding, we’ve supported the rollout of mental health training and resources to one million high school students and ten thousand teachers.
We support mental health for Googlers and their families
Our medical plans are designed to cover mental health services. Our Employee Assistance Program provides counseling in times of need and we offer training to managers to better support employees struggling with their mental health. In the U.S., our Google Health & Wellness Center program is expanding access to on-site licensed counselors and clinical psychologists.