The American Academy of Pediatrics has awarded Marye Lee, MD, a second-year pediatric resident of the University of Florida College of Medicine – Jacksonville, with a 2026 Community Access to Child Health, or CATCH, Resident grant titled “Social Media and Youth Mental Health.”
The goal of the grant is to promote awareness about the intersection of social media use and youth mental health in Jacksonville. Lee and other team members will work with the Jacksonville Center for Children’s Rights (CCR), which uses Youth Participatory Action Research, or YPAR, to empower youth to act as researchers and changemakers. The project will also follow a child rights framework, specifically promoting Articles 12 (right to participation) and 17 (right to access information) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN CRC).
In this way, youth and adults will co-create educational materials to promote online safety and raise awareness of social media’s potential impact on mental health.
“I am excited to be a part of this important project,” Lee said. “Knowing that roughly 95% of children ages 13-17 use at least one social media platform, it’s vital to understand how this amount of exposure is contributing to the rise in youth mental health concerns and suicides.”
The CATCH Grant will support youth leaders working with our team to develop and help implement no-cost social media safety education to local middle school students and families. If successful, this pilot program will be expanded to spaces such as afterschool programs caring for middle school students.