Mental illnesses are not discussed enough. I attend Spain Park High School and I see it everywhere. Coming only from a senior, I have experienced having mental illness and seeing mental illnesses. Although I've dealt with it, I think it is more important to mention my dear friend Micehal Robbins. Micheal committed suicide in October of 2022 and nothing has ever been the same since. He dealt with his illness in private so no one ever knew about it until after he passed away. Micheal and I were very close, so this took a toll on me. From this experience, I think it is important to reach out to people for help and to realize it's ok to not be ok. The four bipartisan Caucus in order of priority for me would start with expanding the country's mental health professional workforce. Expanding the workforce allows more people helped with their mental illness. Next, I would enhance our nation’s crisis response services. Enhancing our response systems will lead to more citizens being helped. Having these two bipartisan Caucus aims first should lead to having lower amounts of civilians with mental illnesses. Next, in order of urgency, I would put improving prevention and early intervention efforts. Preventing or lowering the chances of mental illness would be the healthiest for humans. My main goal is to lessen the number of humans with mental health issues. This would also allow you to decrease the need for response services. Although all these aims are beneficial I would put increasing access to evidence-based mental health treatment and common-sense solutions last. Resulting to treatment is not a widespread solution. Another priority that is not listed but that is equally important is reducing the stigma around mental health. Reducing stigma would allow for more citizens to be helped. The stigma around mental health is toxic. I believe that is just as important to talk about mental health as the other aims. Talking about mental health is important and should be mentioned in schooling. With this aim, it will allow adults and especially more children to reach out for help. If this were to be added to the list of aims, I would say that talking about mental health is the most important. Getting people to understand that they are not alone and that other people are struggling is very important. This allows people to relate and connect on similar issues. Reducing the stigma around mental health will slowly reduce the country's suicide rate.