NAMI Massachusetts NEXTGEN Youth Advisory Council

NAMI Massachusetts has launched our first NEXTGEN Youth Advisory Council, modeled after NAMI National. NEXTGEN aims to represent diverse voices of young adults (18-25) across the state, ensuring that their voices, needs, and ideas are integrated into the same policies, programs, and services that directly affect them.

Through NEXTGEN, NAMI Massachusetts seeks to empower youth by providing a platform for leadership, offering training opportunities, supporting creative projects, and fostering a strong community of like-minded advocates

For more information, or any questions, please reach out to Courtney Campbell at ccampbell@namimass.org

Jade (she/her) is pursuing a Clinical Mental Health Counseling degree with a specialization in Drama Therapy at Lesley University. She is deeply passionate about youth mental health and was drawn to NEXTGEN because of its focus on uplifting young adult voices and concerns. With experience working on a crisis line during and after her undergraduate studies, Jade developed a strong commitment to mental health accessibility—particularly in school and community settings. Over the past year, she co-founded the Expressive Therapies Student Association with fellow graduate students, an initiative designed to expand creative arts therapy learning within the university community. Jade is a strong advocate for integrating the creative arts into therapeutic practice and plans to bring this passion into her work with NEXTGEN. In her free time, she enjoys reading, singing, cooking, biking, hiking and spending time with her fiancé and their cats. 

Lauren Bonner (she/her) is a council member on the NEXTGEN Advisory Council hailing from Providence, Rhode Island. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Brown University. Lauren is passionate about mental health advocacy, suicide prevention, harm reduction, and health equity. Outside of NAMI Mass, she currently serves as the Americorps Office Based Addiction Treatment Care Coordinator at Saint Francis House, a day shelter in Boston. In this role, she provides case management services such as coordinating appointments, accessing recovery programs, and obtaining vital documents for our unhoused community members struggling with substance use. Lauren has been involved with New England NAMI projects since middle school when she first attended a NAMI walk. She became interested in mental health advocacy after losing a loved one to addiction. Outside of NAMI Mass, Lauren loves fashion, metal music, rock climbing, and building Legos. 

Kaelin (she/her) is a sophomore at Harvard studying psychology. Her passion and personal connection to mental health coupled with a desire to be active in her community drive her to help realize NAMI Mass NEXTGEN’s mission. She also runs track at Harvard and aims to integrate her love for sports into her work with NAMI Mass. Outside of work and school she is also an avid reader and enjoys spending time with friends and family. 

Emily (she/her) is a third-year student at College of the Holy Cross pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Neuroscience. Growing up, she has always been interested in mental health and wants to further work in decreasing the stigma around complex mental health disorders. Additionally, she’s also passionate about advocating for inclusivity and equality, specifically for the LGBTQIA+ community. At her college, she is the Co-Chair of Pride and apart of multiple Peer Education groups focusing on mental health and reproductive rights. Being apart of NEXTGEN’s mission gives her the resources and support needed to continue her work in her community. Outside of this, she also enjoys spending time with friends, watching movies, playing sports, working out, and rock climbing. 

Matias (he/him) is currently a student at Northeastern University pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Political Science. He comes with experience working in the Executive Bureau at the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, where he helps bridge the gap between the Attorney General and residents across the Commonwealth, ensuring that communities have access to public resources, rights education, and direct outreach on issues that matter to them. He was drawn to NAMI Mass through his own trials and tribulations in life and to NEXTGEN because of its mission to empower young people to shape the future of our mental health support and advocacy. At school, Matias has served as Assistant Speaker of the Student Government Senate, a lead for Northeastern’s Voting Coalition, and as a writer for the school paper, The Huntington News, where he highlights community stories and student advocacy. Outside of work, you can find Matias trying to explore all that New England has to offer, finding new restaurants in Boston, traveling, and trying to learn something new everyday. 

Anna Mazur (she/her) is a recent graduate from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, where she studied psychology. She was drawn to NEXTGEN as a way to get involved in state-level mental health initiatives and advocacy. She is currently a Post-Baccalaureate Child and Adolescent Clinical Fellow with McLean Hospital, where she works with adolescents in a residential treatment program. Outside of her work, she enjoys music and spending time with family and friends.

Gauri is a rising senior at Harvard, completing a double B.A. in Psychology and Government. She is also pursuing a language citation in Spanish and a Certificate of Civic Engagement. At Harvard, she has been a part of the Institute of Politics’ Policy Program as an Education Policy Researcher, a Technology Policy Team Lead, and the Director of Marketing and Design. She recently co-founded HU-SPARK (Harvard Undergrads Supporting Policy, Advocacy, and Research for Kids), an organization working to support youth policy and litigation. Gauri worked with the Harvard Lab for Youth Mental Health for roughly two years, supporting academic research examining mental health interventions on war-torn Ukrainian youth and a large-scale meta analysis of digital psychotherapies. She also served as a peer counselor with Indigo, Harvard’s intersectionality-focused peer counseling organization. Before college, she co-created and founded HappiGenius, a social and emotional learning-based program for elementary school-age kids, and conducted multiple clinical trials with the program. She is now writing her senior thesis on gender bias in text-to-image multimodal artificial intelligence models. Long-term, Gauri is passionate about improving youth mental health through policy and law. She was particularly drawn to NEXTGEN’s commitment to bringing youth voices to the table, and is incredibly excited to be a part of NEXTGEN’s inaugural cohort! For fun, Gauri loves to dance, read and write, travel, and play with her goldendoodle, Simba. 

Chloe (she/her) has been a mental health advocate since high school, advocating for herself, but more importantly, for others who cannot. She was drawn to NEXTGEN because she saw it as an opportunity to make a change, take her advocacy to the next level, and amplify voices in her community. Outside of NEXTGEN, Chloe is a clinical psychology doctoral student (PsyD) at William James College in Newton, MA. Her clinical interests include children and families, health psychology, and maternal mental health. In her free time, Chloe works part-time as a food tour guide in Boston, reads many books, listens to Taylor Swift, and does pilates. She is extremely excited to work with her fellow passionate team members and see all that can be created together. 

Fiona (she/her) is a mental health enthusiast driven by curiosity and nuances across disciplines. Originally from Taipei, Taiwan, she came to the U.S. to study Neuroscience and Medicine, Health, and Society at Vanderbilt University. She joined NEXTGEN to do her part in building community and fostering resilience in current times of uncertainty. Fiona works as a clinical research coordinator at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and spends her free time cooking, reading, trying (key word) to grow an edible tomato in the garden, and writing her newsletter, Mentally, to explore critical psychiatry. 

Roja Yousuf (she/her) is a senior at Harvard College studying Neuroscience with a secondary in Global Health and Health Policy. She was drawn to NEXTGEN’s mission because of its focus on youth-led mental health advocacy and community-building—values that deeply align with her work as Co-Director of Indigo Peer Counseling, a Wellness Educator, and as an EMT with CrimsonEMS. Roja has spent the past ten years practicing nonjudgmental and reflective peer support. She’s especially passionate about making mental health care more accessible for first-gen, low-income, and BIPOC communities. She loves doing jigsaw puzzles, taking riverside walks, having long conversations, and spending time with her sisters. She hopes to pursue a career in pediatric medicine rooted in empathy and advocacy.